Etymology

dial it in

Today it means: To set up in a perfect or complete way. Full definition →

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The story

* (set up well): Often, complex systems have many dials, which need to be tweaked for optimal performance. Thus, dialing it in involves moving the various dials until the system is performing better. Very probably, it began as a military term used in artillery and naval gunnery; e.g. "We have the enemy dialed in."

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.