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”).

• (UK, US) IPA^(key): /ˈdaɪ.əl/, [ˈdaɪ.əɫ]

• Audio (AU)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -aɪəl
• Hyphenation: di‧al

dial (plural dials)

A dial (disk with finger holes) on a Swiss telephone

1. A graduated, circular scale over which a needle moves to show a measurement (such as speed).

   The dial on the dashboard showed the car was nearly out of gas.

2. A clock face.
3. A sundial.
4. 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!

5. 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.

6. (UK, Australia, slang) A person's face. [from 19th c.]
   • 1960, P[elham] G[renville] Wodehouse, chapter 9, in Jeeves in the Offing, London: Herbert Jenkins, OCLC 1227855:

     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.

   • 2006, Alexis Wright, Carpentaria, Giramondo 2012, p. 137:

     Old Mona Lisa would have looked like a sour lemon beside Angel Day on the rare days she put a smile on her dial, laughing with her friends when some new man was in town.

7. A miner's compass.

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

1. (transitive) To control or select something with a dial, or (figuratively) as if with a dial.

   The president has recently dialled down the rhetoric.

2. (transitive) To select a number, or to call someone, on a telephone.

   In an emergency dial 999.

3. (intransitive) To use a dial or a telephone.

   Please be careful when dialling.

• The spellings Dialing and dialed are more common in the US. Dialling and dialled are more common elsewhere.

• Dail, Dali, Dalí, dali, laid

dial m (plural diales)

1. dial

• “dial”, in Diccionario de la lengua española, Vigésima tercera edición, Real Academia Española, 2014

From Middle Welsh dial, from Old Welsh digal, from Proto-Brythonic *diɣal, from Proto-Celtic *dī-galā. Cognate with Cornish dyal and Old Irish dígal.

• (North Wales) IPA^(key): /ˈdɪ.al/
• (South Wales) IPA^(key): /ˈdiː.al/, /ˈdi.al/

dial m (plural dialau or dialon)

1. revenge

• dialgar (“vengeful”)

• R. J. Thomas, G. A. Bevan, P. J. Donovan, A. Hawke et al., editors (1950–present), “dial”, in Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru Online (in Welsh), University of Wales Centre for Advanced Welsh & Celtic Studies