Word.ws English Dictionary

turn the dial

turn the dial is the alternative form of move the dial.

Meaning of move the dial

Verb

move the dial (third-person singular simple present moves the dial, present participle moving the dial, simple past and past participle moved the dial)

  1. To make a measurable difference.
    • The results in Table 5.2 show that changing the size of the firm in the vignette from small, regional, national, or global does not move the dial for trust, therefore not supporting Hypothesis 2a that public trust in business will be affected by the firm's size.2014, Jared D. Harris, Brian Moriarty, Andrew C. Wicks, Public Trust in Business, page 140
    Synonyms:
    move the needle

Forms of turn the dial

third-person singular presentturns the dial
present participleturning the dial
past participleturned the dial
pastturned the dial

Questions about turn the dial

What is turn the dial the alternative form of?
Turn the dial is the alternative form of move the dial.

Words near turn the dial in the dictionary

  1. turn the boat around
  2. turn the clock back
  3. turn the clocks back
  4. turn the cold shoulder on someone
  5. turn the corner
  6. turn the dial
  7. turn the frown upside down
  8. turn the knife
  9. turn the knife in the wound
  10. turn the other cheek
  11. turn the other way

Source and license

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