First recorded in 1980–85
First recorded in 1980–85
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
They are almost always intense, with emotions on speed dial and hormones running amok.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 22, 2026
Which is why you should have an arborist on speed dial.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 4, 2026
Go forth and retire, and keep your accountant on speed dial.
From MarketWatch ● Dec. 19, 2025
But that also affirms her as a real person as opposed to a flattened personality, one who is inoffensive, a little twee and unbothered about being an amateur with A-list chefs on speed dial.
From Salon ● Aug. 27, 2025
How did she not have the Gravedigger on speed dial?
From "Made You Up" by Francesca Zappia
The photos showed several bedrooms in the US Virgin Islands home, as well as a room with masks on a wall and a phone with names written on speed-dial buttons.
From BBC ● Dec. 5, 2025
What I learned from my nightmarish Los Angeles apartment hunt: bring a tape measure, have the attorney general on speed-dial and “room with a view” is subjective.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 29, 2024
But it continues to be attacked – regularly enough for the bar manager to have the city graffiti-cleaning service on his speed-dial.
From The Guardian ● Jan. 26, 2020
A 75-year-old woodworker and an attorney in her 50s worked alongside, with personal cellphones wired into laptop computers to speed-dial phone numbers in search of noncommittal voters.
From Washington Times ● May 30, 2016
Alex sat at the table with his cell phone and punched the speed-dial for his dad.
From "Eleven" by Tom Rogers
I pulled out my flip phone, speed-dialed home and said, “Mom, you are not going believe what just happened….”
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 26, 2024
The built-in telephone can be dialed in the conventional manner or, for frequently called numbers, "speed-dialed" with a touch of the screen.
From Time Magazine Archive
Turning off the motor so I could hear, I speed-dialed home to see if Mom knew anything.
From "Red Kayak" by Priscilla Cummings
Jake speed-dialed the FBI agents and whispered, “Go!” just as the Riverview team stepped onstage.
From "The Smartest Kid in the Universe" by Chris Grabenstein
After a tumultuous morning during which US stock market indexes dropped and oil prices surged, the American president began speed-dialing reporters in an apparent effort to soothe nerves.
From BBC ● Mar. 9, 2026
Confidants say Trump is still speed-dialing people in the evenings, as he has done for decades.
From Reuters ● Aug. 4, 2017
This insta-narrative—about the snooping neighbor twitching the curtains and speed-dialing the cops every time the Meitiv kids wander a block from their home to pick flowers in the park—was irresistible.
From Slate ● Apr. 21, 2015
Meanwhile, all four of Clinton's top political aides were speed-dialing the Hill, sending and seeking reassurance.
From Time Magazine Archive
Mom offers in an overly hyper way, and she’s already speed-dialing my dad as she exits the bathroom.
From "The Running Dream" by Wendelin Van Draanen
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
