or dial-plate, subs. (common).—The face. TO TURN THE HANDS ON THE DIAL = to disfigure the face.
ENGLISH SYNONYMS.—Frontispiece; gills (the jaws); chump (also the head); phiz; physog; mug; jib; chivy, or chevy; roach and dace (rhyming); signboard; door-plate; front-window.
FRENCH SYNONYMS.—La binette (familiar: quelle sale binette = what an ugly mug); un abcès (pop. = ‘a red or bloated face’); la fertille (thieves’: also straw); la fiole (fam. = phial); la bobine (pop: from O. F. bobe = grimace); une balle d’amour (prostitutes’: a handsome face); une balle (pop.: also = a franc piece and head); une glutouse (thieves’); une gargouille, gargouine, or gargue (popular); une gargarousse (thieves’); une gargagoitche (thieves’); une frime (thieves’: une frime à la manque = ugly face).
GERMAN SYNONYMS.—Bonum or Bunem (Hanoverian: from Heb. ponim = face); Ponim (see preceding); Rauner (also = the eye; im Rauner halten = to keep an eye upon one).
ITALIAN SYNONYMS.—Berlo; baleffo (literally, a gash or scar: primarily = the mouth).
SPANISH SYNONYMS.—El mundo (also = the world); el geme (a woman’s face. Properly, the space between the extended ends of thumb, and forefinger).
1811. GROSE and CLARKE, Lexicon Balatronicum, s.v.
1889. Bird o’ Freedom, 7 Aug., p. 3. An absinthe tumbler which caught him a nasty crack across the DIAL finally convinced him that discretion was the better part of valour.
1890. Polytechnic Magazine, 21 March. ‘Boxing Brutalities.’ Now if there is a rule that no competitor may strike another with a force greater than a fixed number of pounds, it will be easy to disqualify a man whose opponent’s DIAL shows a greater amount of punishment.
