Word.ws English Dictionary

dial it in

dial it in verb: to set up in a perfect or complete way.

Verb

dial it in (third-person singular simple present dials it in, present participle (US) dialing it in or (UK) dialling it in, simple past and past participle (US) dialed it in or (UK) dialled it in)

  1. To set up in a perfect or complete way.
    • The mechanic dialed in the bicycle before the customer picked it up.
    • He estimated the corner of the building was forty yards away and dialed it in. The weapon made a funny, hollow bloop sound when it fired but the results were anything but comical. The grenade landed a foot from the edge of the building2006, Clive Cussler, Jack Du Brul, Skeleton Coast, page 317
  2. To give a lackluster, uninspired, or timid performance (especially when capable of doing better); to phone it in.
    • The actor simply dialed in his performance, leaving even his devoted fans disappointed with the show as a whole.
    • "I'm not sure what the kind of person who listens to him is, but I would guess it's someone who doesn't listen to mainstream, boring, dial-it-in rock."2006 October 14, Billboard, volume 118, number 41, page 58

Examples of dial it in in a sentence

  • you'll need to understand its suspension system and dial it in properly2006, Bill Stermer, Streetbikes: Everything You Need to Know, page 121:
  • It's a brand-neu; design and, like a new model of anything, it sometimes takes some tweaking to dial it in.2007 November, Running Times, number 351, page 6:
  • The 3D animator has control over how strong it is and can “dial it in” to get any desired amount of turbulence.2007, Steve Wright, Compositing Visual Effects: Essentials for the Aspiring Artist, page 55:
  • Start with the bindings, then the fin, and as a last measure, take out the file or sandpaper to dial it in.2010, Ben Favret, Water Skiing and Wakeboarding, page 64:

Forms of dial it in

third-person singular presentdials it in
present participle USdialing it in
present participle UKdialling it in
past participle USdialed it in
past USdialed it in
past participle UKdialled it in
past UKdialled it in

Origin of dial it in

* (set up well): Often, complex systems have many dials, which need to be tweaked for optimal performance. Thus, dialing it in involves moving the various dials until the system is performing better. Very probably, it began as a military term used in artillery and naval gunnery; e.g. "We have the enemy dialed in."

Questions about dial it in

What does dial it in mean?
Dial it in means to set up in a perfect or complete way.
How do you use dial it in in a sentence?
you'll need to understand its suspension system and dial it in properly
What part of speech is dial it in?
Dial it in is a verb.
What is the past tense of dial it in?
The past tense of dial it in is dialed it in.

Words near dial it in in the dictionary

  1. dial gauges
  2. dial in
  3. dial indicator
  4. dial indicators
  5. dial into
  6. dial it in
  7. dial lock
  8. dial locks
  9. dial number
  10. dial numbers
  11. dial out

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: dial it in (page history and authors). 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.

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Cite this entry: “dial it in.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/dial_it_in. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.