  In the absence of a concrete discovery of new physics at the LHC, global
analyses of the standard model effective field theory (SMEFT) are important to
find and describe the impact of new physics beyond the energy reach of the LHC.
Among the SMEFT operators that can be constrained via various measurements, the
dimension six triple gluon operator involves neither the Higgs boson nor the
top quark, yet its variation can have measurable effects on top and Higgs
production. Without independent constraints on its impact, the sensitivity of
measurements in the top and Higgs sectors to new physics is reduced. We show
that the dijet angular distribution is a powerful observable for probing the
triple gluon operator. We set the most stringent limit on the triple gluon
effective coupling by reinterpreting the results of a search for new phenomena
in dijet events using 35.9 fb$^{-1}$ of pp collision data collected at
$\sqrt{s}$ = 13 TeV performed by the CMS collaboration. The obtained limit on
the strength of the triple gluon operator is far below the sensitivity of that
which can be derived from top quark and Higgs measurements and thus this
operator can be neglected in global SMEFT analyses.
