Word.ws English Dictionary

dials back

dials back is the third-person singular simple present indicative of dial back.

Meaning of dial back

Verb

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

  1. (idiomatic, transitive) To reduce (one's energy or intensity); to restrain (a feeling or action).
    • The Des Moines station asked him to dial back his coverage, facing what he called an understandable pressure to maintain ratings.2023 July 9, AP, “‘You should have seen this note’: US meteorologists harassed for reporting on climate crisis”, in The Guardian, →ISSN
    Antonyms:
    dial up, ratchet up

Questions about dials back

What is dials back the third-person singular simple present indicative of?
Dials back is the third-person singular simple present indicative of dial back.

Words near dials back in the dictionary

  1. dialpad
  2. dialpads
  3. dialpainter
  4. dialpainters
  5. dials
  6. dials back
  7. dials down
  8. dials down a notch
  9. dials in
  10. dials into
  11. dials it in

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: dials back (page history and authors); dial back (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: “dials back.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/dials_back. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.