dial
Syllables: di·alUK/ˈdaɪ.əl/
dial noun: a graduated, circular scale over which a needle moves to show a measurement (such as speed).
Noun
dial (plural dials)
- A graduated, circular scale over which a needle moves to show a measurement (such as speed).
- Holonyms: (often holonymous) instrument, gauge
- The dial on the dashboard showed the car was nearly out of gas.
- Such a field as part of a clock face; (metonymic) the entire clock face.
- A sundial.
- A panel on a radio etc showing wavelengths or channels; a knob that is turned to change the wavelength etc.
- Turn the dial to Radio 4: my favourite show is on!
- A disk with finger holes on a telephone; used to select the number to be called.
- His hands were too fat to operate the dial on the telephone.
- A person's face.
- “Well, all I can say is that if yer don't take yer dial outer the road I'll bloomin' well take an' bounce a gibber off yer crust.”1918, Norman Lindsay, The Magic Pudding, page 90
- At the sound of the old familiar voice he spun around with something of the agility of a cat on hot bricks, and I saw that his dial, usually cheerful, was contorted with anguish, as if he had swallowed a bad oyster.1960, P[elham] G[renville] Wodehouse, chapter IX, in Jeeves in the Offing, London: Herbert Jenkins, →OCLC
- A miner's compass.
Verb
dial (third-person singular simple present dials, present participle (US) dialing or (UK) dialling, simple past and past participle (US) dialed or (UK) dialled)
- To control or select something with a dial, or (figuratively) as if with a dial.
- The lead guitarist for the rock band Spinal Tap dialed his amplifier to 11.
- The president has recently dialled down the rhetoric.
- To select a number, or to call someone, on a telephone, regardless of whether a physical dial is present.
- In an emergency dial 999.
- To use a dial or a telephone.
- Please be careful when dialling.
- To initiate a connection to a remote computer service such as a database.
- The application failed when attempting to dial the Postgres server, because there were too many open connections.
- To use a dial-up modem to connect a personal computer to the Internet.
- I always check my guestbook when I dial, just in case anyone saw my Web site.
Proper noun capitalized: Dial
Dial (plural Dials)
- A surname.
dial meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Urdu and Bengali
dial in Hindi
- to select a number, or to call someone, on a telephone
- मिलाना milānā
dial in Tamil
- சுழற்று, வட்ட முகப்பு
dial in Urdu
- to select a number, or to call someone, on a telephone
- ملانا milānā
dial in Bengali
- ডায়াল, ঘড়ি, ঘডির মুখ, ঘডির ডায়াল, ডায়াল করা
More languagesFewer languages
- dial in Telugu
- పంపు pampu
- dial in Malayalam
- ഡയൽ ചെയ്യുക, ടെലിഫോൺ വിളിക്കുക, ടെലഫോണിൽ സംസാരിക്കുക, ഭാഷണയന്ത്രം മൂലം അറിയിക്കുക
- dial in Arabic
- مُؤَشِّر muʔaššir, مِزْوَل mizwal, مُدَرَّجَة mudarraja
- dial in Persian
- شمارهگیر šomâre-gir
- dial in Vietnamese
- quay
Examples of dial in a sentence
- She dialed nervously, praying that Grandma would pick up the phone and everything would turn out OK.
- Before starting the recording, make sure you've dialled in the right synthesiser settings.
- I tried dialling in to the server, but I couldn't connect.
Forms of dial
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | dials |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | dials |
| present participle US | dialing |
| present participle UK | dialling |
| past participle US | dialed |
| past US | dialed |
| past participle UK | dialled |
| past UK | dialled |
| Proper noun | |
| plural | Dials |
Origin of dial
The original meaning was 'sundial' and/or 'clock dial'; from Middle English diall, from Middle French dyal, from Latin diālis (“daily, concerning the day”), because of its use in telling the time of day, from Latin diēs (“day”). Compare Spanish dial and día (“day”).
Words formed from dial
- autodial
- butt dial
- compass dial
- dead dial
- dialable
- dial-a-date
- dial-a-joke
- dial-a-ride
- dial-a-ride problem
- dial-around
- dial-a-yield
- dial back
- dial down
- dial down a notch
- dialer
- dial gauge
- dial-in
- dial in
- dial indicator
- dial into
- dialist
- dial it in
- dialless
- diallist
- dial lock
- dial number
- dial out
- dialpainter
- dial tone
- dial towards
- dial-up
- dial up
- direct-dial
- don't touch that dial
- drunk dial
- mine dial
- miner's dial
- misdial
- moondial
- move the dial
- pocket dial
- pocket-dial
- predial
- radium dial
- redial
- reset the dial
- rotary-dial
- rotary dial
- shadow dial
- shift the dial
- speed-dial
- speed dial
- subdial
- tide dial
- tropical dial
- turn the dial
- undialed
- undialled
- video dial tone
- war-dial
Phrases with dial
- dial locks
- dial tones
- dial gauges
- dial numbers
- moved the dial
- moves the dial
- turns the dial
- dial indicators
- moving the dial
- resets the dial
- shifts the dial
- turned the dial
4 more phrasesFewer phrases
Words that rhyme with dial
Questions about dial
- What does dial mean?
- Dial means a graduated, circular scale over which a needle moves to show a measurement (such as speed).
- What is dial in Hindi?
- Dial in Hindi is मिलाना (milānā). See Dial meaning in Hindi.
- What part of speech is dial?
- Dial can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
- How do you pronounce dial?
- Dial is pronounced /ˈdaɪ.əl/ (UK).
- What is the plural of dial?
- The plural of dial is dials.
Words near dial in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: dial (page history and authors); Dial (page history and authors); dial (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); dial (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); పంపు (Telugu) (page history and authors); dial (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-dial.ogg.
Cite this entry: “dial.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/dial. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.