rotary dial

ro′tary di′al

n. a disk with finger holes that is affixed to a telephone and rotated to match up the finger holes with the letters and digits of a telephone number. ro′tary-di′al, adj.

rotary dial

The disk on a rotary telephone that is turned to dial a phone number. I hated having to use a rotary dial as a kid—it's so much easier to dial a phone number by pressing buttons.See also: dial

rotary dial

A rotating number selector on early telephones (and TVs). Introduced in the early 1900s, rotary phones were commonly used from the 1920s until the 1960s, when dial phones were gradually replaced with push button phones (see Touch-Tone).

In the Antique Shop

As the caller manually rotated the spring-loaded dial clockwise, it was halted at the finger stop (red arrow). Letting go, the spring automatically reversed the rotation sending a stream of pulses to the telephone company central office (CO). The larger the digit, the more pulses, with 0 generating 10 pulses.

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