Skip to main content
Glite Dictionary
📞 To call 🎛️ A control knob 🕰️ A clock face
dial

dial

63 1.5
A round control on a phone or radio that you turn to choose settings
  • noun
  • /daɪəl/
translation icon : rueda
  • Val flips some switches and sets a couple of dials on the control panel.
  • turn the dial
  • radio dial
  • rotary dial

They can just kind of turn the turn the dials on social media, TikTok.

Autoplay Next

Examples

  • Well, what if you turn that dial to a station you actually like?

    Mulligan Brothers Interviews

  • Radio, somewhere on your dial, and I am here to wake you up!

    Fiction book (1990)

  • I think I'll always like a dial for volume.

    WVFRM Podcast

  • I waited in the car, spinning the radio dial and hearing nothing but static.

    Fiction book (1993)

  • Liddie sat with him in the front seat and moved the dial quickly from station to station.

    Fiction book (1990)

  • Good morning, Bay City, you are tuned in to KBA Y, 93.3 on your dial.

    Starsky & Hutch (2004)

  • When Radio Havana fades out, I twist the dial around and hear all kinds of things, Chinese.

    Fiction book (1994)

  • He turned the dial to increase the volume on the radio.

  • Make sure the dial is set to the correct temperature for baking.

  • She adjusted the dial to switch between different radio stations.

Synonyms

telephone dial
vsdial
  • Archaic
6.4

A round disc on an old phone that you turn to choose a number

is the broader round control used on many devices not only older number selectors

Idioms

don't touch that dial
  • Archaic
3 9.3

To tell viewers or listeners to keep watching and not change the channel during a break in the show

to touch that dial
  • Archaic
1 9.1

Tell someone not to change the radio or television channel before a show returns

Compounds

dial-up
  • Archaic
4 3.8

A connection that uses a telephone line to access the internet and is usually very slow

dial phone
  • Archaic
1 6.8

A telephone with a round wheel you turn to enter numbers

dial telephone
  • Archaic
1 4.9

A phone with a round dial you turn to call someone

dial-up
  • Archaic
1 3.5

Relating to an internet connection that uses a telephone line and is usually very slow

clock dial
3.1

The face of a clock that shows the time with numbers and hands

pocket dial
4.8

A call someone makes by mistake when their phone's buttons are pressed in a pocket

telephone dial
  • Archaic
6.4

A round disc on an old phone that you turn to choose a number

How Adjustable

control panel
  • Specialized
4 3.4
controller
  • Specialized
74 3.8
control
∞ 2.7
dial
63 1.5
to lever
3 4.9
to switch
123 1.0

Surface Forms

dial singular
dials plural

Etymology

Dial for a round control comes from the same word for a clock face; people began to call any round disk you turn a dial, so the name moved to the circular controls on radios and phones.