scale
Pluralscales
Pluralscales
- 1The overall size, extent, or scope of something.
The scale of the rescue operation surprised everyone involved.
Few people grasped the scale of the economic crisis at first.
UsageCommon phrases: the scale of something, on a large scale, on a huge scale.
Similarsize, extent, scope, magnitude, breadth
Note
Science pushes the size sense furthest. Robert L. Dorit, writing in American Scientist in 2012, describes processes that operate on scales outside of human experience.
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 1 fact
- Robert L. Dorit wrote in American Scientist in 2012 about processes operating on scales outside human experience. en.wiktionary.org
- 2To change the size of something while keeping its proportions, especially to expand a process so it produces much larger amounts of the final product.
Engineers scaled the prototype into a full production model.
We need to scale the image without distorting it.
UsageOften with a direction or measure: scale up, scale down, scale a drawing by a factor of ten.
- 3A graded series of numbers, steps, or degrees used to measure something or to rank things in order of size, value, or importance.
The Richter scale measures the strength of earthquakes.
Teachers grade the essays on a five-point scale.
UsageRate something on a scale of 1 to 10, or on a scale from 1 to 10.
Note
Behind the measuring sense stands a ladder: Latin scālae, a flight of steps or a staircase, from scandō, "I climb", the verb behind ascend and descend. The marks on a scale are its rungs. Some scales are closed at both ends; the Richter scale is open-ended and has no top rung.
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 7 facts
- The measuring sense of scale derives from Latin scāla, commonly plural scālae. en.wiktionary.org
- Latin scālae means a flight of stairs or a staircase. en.wiktionary.org
- Scāla derives from scandō, meaning to climb. en.wiktionary.org
- Ascend ultimately derives from scandō. en.wiktionary.org
- Descend ultimately derives from scandō through Latin dēscendō. en.wiktionary.org
- Some scales have fixed lowest and highest grades, as illustrated by the Saffir–Simpson categories 1–5. en.wikipedia.org
- The Richter scale has no fixed upper endpoint. gi.alaska.edu
- 4A device used to measure the mass or weight of an object.
The butcher weighed the meat on a brass scale.
Digital scales can measure to a tenth of a gram.
UsageBoth a scale and scales name the device: step on the scale or on the scales.
Similarbalance
- 5One of the many small, thin, hard plates that overlap to cover the skin of fish and reptiles, or the tiny similar flakes that cover the wings of butterflies and moths.
Each scale on the snake overlapped the next like a tile.
Sunlight glinted off the silver scales of the carp.
Note
Its core picture is a thin, hard layer, and the flaky senses all grow from it. Milton's fish glide "with their fins and shining scales" in Paradise Lost (1667).
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 3 facts
- The flake senses belong to this shell-derived word. en.wiktionary.org
- Milton describes fish gliding with their fins and shining scales in Paradise Lost, Book VII; the item's quotation modernizes spelling. darkwing.uoregon.edu
- Paradise Lost was first published in 1667. wwwe.lib.cam.ac.uk
- 6The ratio between a distance on a map, plan, model, or image and the real distance it represents; also, a marked bar on the map showing this ratio.
The architect drew the plans at a scale of one to fifty.
A finer scale lets the map show individual streets.
UsageOften at a scale of 1 to 50. A plan that is to scale keeps the true proportions.
Similarratio
Note
Mapmakers write it as a ratio, 1:10 or one to fifty, with the drawing's distance first and the real one second. A larger fraction shows a smaller area in greater detail, so a fine scale is the one that can show individual streets. The drawn measuring bar on a map, itself called a scale, gives the same information as a picture instead of as numbers.
Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 4 facts
- A scale ratio places map distance first and corresponding real distance second; 1:10 and one to fifty follow that convention. lib.arizona.edu
- A larger representative fraction corresponds to a map showing a smaller area in greater detail. en.wikipedia.org
- A sufficiently detailed scale can show individual streets. education.nationalgeographic.org
- A scale bar represents the relationship between map and ground distances graphically. docs.qgis.org
- 7A series of musical notes spanning an octave, used to build melodies.
The whole piece is built on a minor scale.
Beginners learn the major scale before tackling harder pieces.
UsageMusicians practice their scales; a piece is built on a major or minor scale.
Note
Music shows most plainly the ladder behind the measuring sense: notes step up in order, giving rungs to build melodies from. The familiar scales (major, minor, pentatonic) repeat at the octave. The word is wider than that, though. It also covers systems that repeat at the tritave or at a pseudo-octave.
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 4 facts
- The musical sense preserves the image of a ladder with successive steps. en.wikisource.org
- The familiar major, minor and pentatonic scales repeat at the octave. en.wikipedia.org
- Some musical scales use the tritave as their repeating interval. huygens-fokker.org
- Some musical systems use a pseudo-octave in place of the conventional octave. en.wikipedia.org
- 8To keep performing well as workload, demand, or other limiting factors increase significantly.
The database scales easily as traffic increases.
Cheap solutions rarely scale to enterprise demands.
UsageOften scale to a larger load, and in the negative: this design won't scale.
Note
It is a judgment about growth: whether more traffic, users or data can be absorbed without performance suffering or costs climbing out of proportion.
- 9To climb to the top of something, especially something steep or high.
Climbers scale the north face of the mountain every summer.
He scaled the fortress walls under cover of darkness.
Similarclimb, ascend, mount, surmount
Oppositedescend
Note
It suits obstacles that resist the climber: Everest, cliffs, walls. Edgar Rice Burroughs's narrator in The Land That Time Forgot (1918) scales barrier-cliffs with crude ladders and chopped toe-holds. In Theodore Roethke's "Feud" (1935), shadowy figures climb over the walls of the person addressed.
Less common meanings
- 10A hard, chalky deposit, mainly calcium carbonate, left by hard water inside kettles, pipes, and boilers.
Hard water leaves scale on the heating element over time.
The plumber found the pipe nearly blocked with scale.
UsageOften called limescale. Scale builds up inside kettles and pipes.
Similarlimescale, fur, deposit
Note
Kettle and boiler deposits take the word from the same flaking-crust family; limescale is a later compound built on it. It belongs with the other thin crusts named by the shell word, and removing it is the descaling verb.
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 1 fact
- The deposit sense belongs to the etymological family associated with shells and thin flakes. en.wiktionary.org
- 11To weigh, measure, or grade something according to a set scale or system.
At the mill, trained workers scale each load of logs to work out how many board feet it will yield.
The champion boxer scaled just under two hundred pounds at the official weigh-in.
Similargrade, rate, measure, assess, rank
Note
Here the verb can behave like weigh. G. Freeman Allen, in Modern Railways (1962), reports that a kitchen-dining-buffet car scales 49.2 tons, with the figure following the verb just as it would after weighs. Shakespeare's Coriolanus uses it figuratively, "scaling his present bearing with his past", to mean weighing one thing against another.
Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 3 facts
- G. Freeman Allen reported in Modern Railways in 1962 that a kitchen-dining-buffet car scales 49.2 tons. en.wiktionary.org
- William Shakespeare wrote Coriolanus. gutenberg.org
- Coriolanus contains the quoted wording, spoken by Sicinius, figuratively comparing present conduct with past conduct. gutenberg.org
- 12To remove the scales from a fish or a similar animal.
The cook scaled and gutted the salmon in minutes.
You should scale the fish under running water.
UsageOften paired with gut: scale and gut a fish.
Similardescale
- 13A standard amount of money paid for a service, such as the union-negotiated rate received by a performer or writer.
The studio paid the writers union scale for the script.
Background performers earn scale plus a small bonus.
UsageUsed with no article: be paid scale, work for scale, earn scale plus a bonus.
Note
The rate is the standard, often union-negotiated figure, not a fee bargained individually. Accepting scale usually marks someone who is not the star, though a star may take scale to join a project they care about.
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 1 fact
- Scale is a standard minimum rate established by union agreement. sagaftra.org
- 14
- 15A small sap-sucking insect that attaches itself to plants beneath a waxy or hard protective covering; also, an infestation of plants by these insects.
Tiny scale clustered along the underside of the lemon leaves.
A heavy coating of scale weakened the potted fig.
- 16One of the many small, flat, woody plates that overlap to form a pinecone or other conifer cone and open when mature to release the seeds.
When the cone matures, each scale opens outward to release the winged seeds.
The tightly closed scale of a green cone protects the developing seeds.
- 17To remove a hard or flaky buildup from something, such as limescale from a boiler or tartar from teeth, often by scraping it off in thin layers.
Plumbers scale the boiler tubes every spring to keep them clear.
At my checkup, the hygienist scaled my back teeth to get rid of the tartar, which felt strange but didn't hurt.
- 18A thin, dry flake of dead skin shed from the surface of the body, especially in abundance as a sign of a skin condition such as psoriasis or dermatitis.
The vet found scale across the dog's back where the dermatitis was worst.
Flakes of scale dropped from the sheep as it scratched against the fence.
- 19To flake or peel off in thin sheets or layers.
The varnish started to scale where moisture had crept beneath it.
Sheets of oxidized metal scaled from the beam after the fire.
UsageOften scale off or scale away.
Note
Here the surface comes away by itself, with no one doing the stripping. It often pairs with off: Francis Bacon, in writings printed just after his death in 1626, reasoned that lobster and crab shells must scale off, since old skins turned up but old shells never did. Weathered sandstone scales the same way.
- 20Body armor formed from many small overlapping plates, distinct from the linked rings of chain mail.
The reenactor's coat of scale weighed nearly twenty pounds.
Ancient cavalry favored scale for its flexibility over rigid plate.
- 21To take measurements directly from an engineering drawing, treating them as reliable dimensions even though doing so can give wrong results and is usually discouraged.
Don't scale the drawing; rely on the dimensions printed beside each feature.
He scaled the plan to estimate the beam length and got it slightly wrong.
UsageMostly in the negative, as in the warning do not scale this drawing.
Similarmeasure
Note
Prints carry warnings such as "Do not scale this drawing" in the title block. Scaling means measuring a length off the paper with a rule instead of reading the stated dimension. It often gives the right answer. But enlargement, reduction or distortion in reproduction can make it quietly wrong, so the written figure always wins.
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 7 facts
- Drawings carry warnings with the wording “Do not scale this drawing”. ths-concepts.co.uk
- Warnings against scaling appear in drawing title blocks. en.wikipedia.org
- Scaling means measuring the drawing with a ruler and interpreting the measurement according to its scale. accu-components.com
- Scaling a drawing can give an accurate dimension and usually works. en.wikipedia.org
- Enlargement or reduction changes the relationship between printed measurements and the stated scale. northnorthants.gov.uk
- Printing can distort the drawing. accu-components.com
- Written dimensions take precedence over measurements scaled from the drawing. ths-concepts.co.uk
- 22Either of the pans or dishes of a balance, on which objects or weights are placed.
- 23The flaky material sloughed off metal when it is heated.
- 24The base of a numeral system; the radix, or number of distinct digits it uses, such as ten for the decimal system.
- 25Either of the two thin side pieces, of metal, wood, bone, plastic, or other material, that form the handle of a knife, especially a pocketknife.
- 26Something to climb by, such as a ladder or staircase.
- 27To strew things widely over an area.
- 28To blast out the barrel of a gun with a light charge of powder so that it is clean.
Showing meanings only.
Practice
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Origins
From Middle English "scale," from Latin "scala" (usually plural "scalae," meaning a flight of steps, staircase, or ladder), which came from "scando" ("I climb"); related to words like ascend and descend.
Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 6 facts
- Scale comes through Middle English scale from Latin scala. en.wiktionary.org
- The Latin word usually appears in the plural scalae, meaning a flight of steps, staircase or ladder. en.wiktionary.org
- Scala derives from scando, whose first-person present meaning is “I climb”. en.wiktionary.org
- Scando means to climb. en.wiktionary.org
- Ascend shares the Latin root scando. en.wiktionary.org
- Descend shares the Latin root scando. en.wiktionary.org
Proto-Germanic *skalo gave Frankish and/or Old High German skala, which passed into Old French as escale and into Middle English as scale. Old English sċealu ("shell, husk") is related, as are Dutch schaal and German Schale.
Inherited from Northern Middle English "scale," from Old Norse "skál" ("bowl"), from Proto-Germanic "*skēlō." It is comparable to Danish "skål" (bowl, cup), Dutch "schaal," and German "Schale."
Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 6 facts
- Scale is inherited from Northern Middle English scale. en.wiktionary.org
- The Old Norse form is skál, meaning bowl; the accent marks a long vowel. en.wiktionary.org
- The cited reconstruction is *skēlō, with long ē and ō. en.wiktionary.org
- The Danish word meaning bowl or cup is skål. Danish skal means shell, peel, rind, or skull. en.wiktionary.org
- Dutch schaal is an etymologically comparable word. en.wiktionary.org
- German Schale is an etymologically comparable word. en.wiktionary.org