"don't touch that dial" meaning in All languages combined

See don't touch that dial on Wiktionary

Phrase [English]

Etymology: From the opening line of Blondie (1939–1950), the radio version of the popular comic strip of the same name. Head templates: {{en-head|phr}} don't touch that dial
  1. (slang, figurative) Stay focused on a discussion or task; maintain the course of action. Tags: figuratively, slang Synonyms: stay tuned
    Sense id: en-don't_touch_that_dial-en-phrase-RRG6QObo Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, English imperative sentences, Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries
     
{
  "etymology_text": "From the opening line of Blondie (1939–1950), the radio version of the popular comic strip of the same name.",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "phr"
      },
      "expansion": "don't touch that dial",
      "name": "en-head"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "phrase",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English imperative sentences",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Stay focused on a discussion or task; maintain the course of action."
      ],
      "id": "en-don't_touch_that_dial-en-phrase-RRG6QObo",
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(slang, figurative) Stay focused on a discussion or task; maintain the course of action."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "stay tuned"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "figuratively",
        "slang"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "don't touch that dial"
}

{
  "etymology_text": "From the opening line of Blondie (1939–1950), the radio version of the popular comic strip of the same name.",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "phr"
      },
      "expansion": "don't touch that dial",
      "name": "en-head"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "phrase",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English imperative sentences",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English phrases",
        "English slang",
        "Pages with 1 entry",
        "Pages with entries"
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Stay focused on a discussion or task; maintain the course of action."
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(slang, figurative) Stay focused on a discussion or task; maintain the course of action."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "stay tuned"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "figuratively",
        "slang"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "don't touch that dial"
}

Download raw JSONL data for don't touch that dial meaning in All languages combined (0.8kB)

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable All languages combined dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2026-08-28 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2026-08-05 using wiktextract (872fc7b and 4deed51). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.