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• phone-in
  phone-in

  noun

  call in.
• phone in
  phone in

  verb

  (intr) to make a telephone call to deliver information (esp to a broadcasting studio or place of work)

phone-in

American  

[fohn-in] / ˈfoʊnˌɪn /

noun

1. call in.

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phone-in ¹ British  

noun

1. 1. a radio or television programme in which listeners' or viewers' questions, comments, etc, are telephoned to the studio and broadcast live

   2. ( as modifier )

      a phone-in discussion

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phone in ² British  

verb

1. (intr) to make a telephone call to deliver information (esp to a broadcasting studio or place of work)

2. slang (tr) to deliver (a performance) in a perfunctory manner

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Etymology

Origin of phone-in

First recorded in 1965–70; noun, adj. use of verb phrase phone in

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

phone-in phone in

Harris gathered some 50 people for a mass phone-in, easily surpassing the British phone regulator’s 52-call threshold.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 8, 2026

Noskova came on 6-love-6 - our BBC Radio 5 Live phone-in with John McEnroe - after her semi-final and joked it might be because there is something magic in Czech beer!

From BBC ● Jul. 11, 2026

Take Nigel Farage, leader of the populist party Reform UK, who has known Trump for close to a decade, hosted him on his phone-in radio show and visited him in the Oval Office.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 22, 2026

Paying tribute, broadcaster and journalist Paul Rowley said he had been "privileged to work with him" at LBC and the BBC, calling Hayes "the best phone-in presenter on British radio".

From BBC ● Dec. 1, 2025

It was as the morning interview and phone-in show host on LBC from 1976 that he properly began to make a name for himself.

From BBC ● Dec. 1, 2025

Days after the storm, artist Peter Roux learned his studio was gone from a drone photo he saw on a stranger’s phone in line at the supermarket.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 26, 2026

Has your boss asked you to phone in about sickness?

From BBC ● Sep. 23, 2026

Twisting her phone in her hands, Santoshi broke down into tears as she recalled the anguish of not knowing for hours whether her parents had survived.

From Barron's ● Sep. 6, 2026

I tried it recently in my neighborhood supermarket and discovered, phone in hand, that a package of Earthbound Farm broccoli florets had a Taylor Farms connection I would otherwise never have known about.

From Salon ● Aug. 27, 2026

The ground beneath me is beginning to sway, and the phone in my hand feels like it weighs a ton.

From "Split the Sky" by Marie Arnold

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