size

Less common meanings

4. 4
   estimateverbcolloquialtransitive

   To estimate the dimensions or magnitude of something by rough approximation.

   The contractor sized the job within minutes of arriving on site.

   Investors want founders who can size the opportunity honestly, without inflating the numbers to impress them.

   UsageCommon in business: size the market, size the opportunity. For judging a person or situation, English uses size up.

   Similargauge, estimate, assess, judge

5. 5
   gradeverbtransitive

   To sort things into groups, or arrange them in order, according to how large they are.

   Machines at the packing house size the apples and send each grade down its own chute.

   Before the auction, the dealer sized the pearls and laid them out in graduated rows.

   Note

   The point of this verb is the outcome: things end up in classes or in order, not with a figure attached, and the things sorted are its direct object. With ore and metal it can mean sifting the fine pieces from the coarse. Watch the homograph: a separate glue word of unclear origin gives priming a surface with glue, so a sized canvas has usually been coated, not sorted.

6. 6
   growverbintransitive

   To grow larger; to increase in dimensions.

   The apples sized steadily through the warm, wet weeks of late summer.

   Growers thin the clusters so that the remaining fruit can size properly.

   Similargrow, increase, swell, expand

   Oppositeshrink, dwindle, decrease

7. 7
   gluenouncountable or uncountable

   A thin, sticky glue or paste used to seal a surface such as paper, canvas, or plaster, or to fix wallpaper or gold leaf.

   Traditional painters seal raw linen with a coat of size.

   The size fills the canvas weave and stops paint from soaking through.

   UsageMost often with no a, or as a coat of size or a layer of size.

   Note

   A different word altogether, though spelled the same. It comes from Middle English syse, of unclear origin, and is related to Old Italian sisa, a glue used by painters. It may be connected to the measuring size, or it may come from another root entirely. The other glue and paste senses share this history.

8. 8
   apply glueverbtransitive

   To apply glue or primer to a surface in preparation for painting.

   Artists size their canvases to keep oil paint from rotting the fibers.

   He sized the panel with two thin coats before laying down any color.

   Similarprime, seal

   Note

   The verb of the painter's glue, and its forms collide with the measuring verb. Sized and sizing are spelled exactly like the forms of the "make a certain size" verb. A sized canvas may therefore be sealed with size or cut to dimension, and only context, usually a mention of painting or glue, decides which.

9. 9
   noundatedfigurativelycountable or uncountable

   A person's degree of rank, ability, or strength of character.

   men of a less size and quality**

   1692, Roger L’Estrange, Fables

   the middle or lower size of people

   1720, Jonathan Swift, A Letter to a Young Clergyman

   Similarstature, caliber, standing

   Note

   A dated figure of speech in which bigness stands for standing. Roger L'Estrange writes of "men of a less size and quality" in 1692. Jonathan Swift writes of "the middle or lower size of people" in A Letter to a Young Gentleman, Lately Entered into Holy Orders (1721). In both, size sorts people by rank the way a tailor sorts coats. In modern prose it reads as deliberately old-fashioned.

10. 10
    nounobsoletecountable

    Formerly, an official regulation fixing a standard, such as the quantity or price of goods or the amount of a fee or tax.

    Note

    Shakespeare's King Lear shows the plural in use: to "scant my sizes" is to cut back the measured allowances a person is owed. The standard applied above all to food and drink, which made it a matter of daily portions rather than abstract law. The sense is obsolete, but older texts still use it, and there sizes in the plural can mean allowances, not dimensions. Source

    Checked 5 Nov 2026 · 6 facts

    • King Lear is Shakespeare's play. folger.edu
    • The exact phrase scant my sizes occurs in King Lear, spoken by Lear to Regan in Act 2, scene 4. folger.edu
    • Sizes in this passage means allowances, so scanting them means reducing them. en.wikisource.org
    • The historical standard concerned especially food and drink, supporting the explanation in terms of portions. en.wiktionary.org
    • The regulation sense is marked obsolete. en.wiktionary.org
    • Older texts use plural sizes to mean allowances. en.wikisource.org
11. 11
    court sessionnounobsoletecountable or uncountable

    A court session held periodically to try civil or criminal cases.

    I know you would have women above the law, but it is all a lye; I heard his lordship say at size, that no one is above the law.

    1749, Henry Fielding, Tom Jones

    Note

    Here the word's legal ancestry shows through. This is assize itself with its first syllable worn away, the same clipping that gave the everyday sense its form. Henry Fielding puts it in a character's mouth in Tom Jones (1749): "I heard his lordship say at size." In that phrase it takes no article, as one says at law. Obsolete except in dialect, it now suits only the rendering of regional speech. Source

    Checked 5 Nov 2026 · 5 facts

    • Legal size and everyday size share an origin in assize with its initial syllable removed. gutenberg.org
    • Henry Fielding wrote Tom Jones. en.wikipedia.org
    • Tom Jones was first published in 1749. en.wikipedia.org
    • A character speaks the quoted words in Tom Jones; the speaker is Squire Western. gutenberg.org
    • The quoted phrase at size has no article, but this is not a general restriction: the plural occurs with the definite article in at the 'sizes. gutenberg.org
12. 12
    order foodverbobsoleteUK

    To order food or drink from the college buttery, and so to record the charge on the buttery book.

    Note

    Cambridge undergraduates once used this verb for running a tab. To size was to order from the buttery and, by extension, to have the score entered in the buttery book. Both halves belong to one act, so the word covers the ordering and the debt alike. It is obsolete and tied to Cambridge, and readers now meet it only in accounts of old college life. Source

    Checked 5 Nov 2026 · 3 facts

    • Cambridge undergraduates used size for ordering food on account. gutenberg.org
    • To size meant to order food or drink from the buttery and, by extension, enter the charge in its book. en.wiktionary.org
    • The ordering and accounting senses were connected through charging provisions to a student's account. gutenberg.org
13. 13
    verbobsoletetransitive

    To cause something to swell or grow in bulk.

    Note

    Here something else does the swelling, the reverse of the intransitive "grow" verb. Nineteenth-century dictionaries took the sense from Wit at Several Weapons (printed 1647), where a scholar kept short by a stingy uncle is fain "to size your belly out" on scraps and weak beer; others read that line as the buttery verb. In The Two Noble Kinsmen, a "blood cizd field" is smeared with blood as with size instead. The use is obsolete. Source

    Checked 5 Nov 2026 · 5 facts

    • Size has an obsolete transitive sense meaning to cause something to swell, alongside an intransitive sense meaning to grow. en.wiktionary.org
    • The Two Noble Kinsmen was first published in 1634 and was jointly authored by John Fletcher and William Shakespeare. en.wikipedia.org
    • The Second Queen speaks the quoted words, with the original spellings cizd and swolne. en.wiktionary.org
    • She asks Hippolyta to imagine Theseus lying dead and swollen in the field. folger.edu
    • Blood-sized means coated with blood as with size or glue; this quotation does not exemplify size meaning to swell. upload.wikimedia.org
14. 14
    nounUS

    Ellipsis of chili size.
15. 15
    noun

    In graph theory, the number of edges in a graph.
16. 16
    noun

    The thickened crust that forms on the surface of coagulated blood.
17. 17
    noun

    A measuring instrument of several perforated gauges riveted together at one end, used for gauging the size of pearls.
18. 18
    noun

    Alternative form of sice.