scale

• IPA^(key): /skeɪl/, [skeɪ̯ɫ]

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• Hyphenation: scale
• Rhymes: -eɪl

Borrowed from Latin scāla, usually in plural scālae (“a flight of steps, stairs, staircase, ladder”), for *scadla, from scandō (“I climb”); see scan, ascend, descend, etc.

scale (plural scales)

1. (obsolete) A ladder; a series of steps; a means of ascending.
2. An ordered, usually numerical sequence used for measurement, means of assigning a magnitude.

   Please rate your experience on a scale from 1 to 10.

   The magnitude of an earthquake is measured on the open-ended Richter scale.

3. Size; scope.
   • 2012 January 1, Robert L. Dorit, “Rereading Darwin”, in American Scientist‎, volume 100, number 1, page 23:

     We live our lives in three dimensions for our threescore and ten allotted years. Yet every branch of contemporary science, from statistics to cosmology, alludes to processes that operate on scales outside of human experience: the millisecond and the nanometer, the eon and the light-year.

   The Holocaust was insanity on an enormous scale.

   There are some who question the scale of our ambitions.

4. The ratio of depicted distance to actual distance.

   This map uses a scale of 1:10.

5. A line or bar associated with a drawing, used to indicate measurement when the image has been magnified or reduced
   • 1992, Rudolf M[athias] Schuster, The Hepaticae and Anthocerotae of North America: East of the Hundredth Meridian, volume V, New York, N.Y.: Columbia University Press, →ISBN, page ix:

     Even though precision can be carried to an extreme, the scales which now are drawn in (and usually connected to an appropriate figure by an arrow) will allow derivation of meaningful measurements.

6. (music) A series of notes spanning an octave, tritave, or pseudo-octave, used to make melodies.
7. A mathematical base for a numeral system; radix.

   the decimal scale; the binary scale

8. Gradation; succession of ascending and descending steps and degrees; progressive series; scheme of comparative rank or order.
   • (Can we date this quote?) John Milton

     There is a certain scale of duties […] which for want of studying in right order, all the world is in confusion.

   • 2012 May 13, Phil McNulty, “Man City 3-2 QPR”, in BBC Sport‎:

     City's players and supporters travelled from one end of the emotional scale to the other in those vital seconds, providing a truly remarkable piece of football theatre and the most dramatic conclusion to a season in Premier League history.

9. A standard amount of money to be received by a performer or writer, negotiated by a union.

   Sally wasn't the star of the show, so she was glad to be paid scale.

• (earthquake): Mercalli scale, Richter scale
• (economy): wage scale

• (psychology): Kinsey scale

• degree
• ordinal variable

• scale on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

scale (third-person singular simple present scales, present participle scaling, simple past and past participle scaled)

1. (transitive) To change the size of something whilst maintaining proportion; especially to change a process in order to produce much larger amounts of the final product.

   We should scale that up by a factor of 10.

2. (transitive) To climb to the top of.

   Hilary and Norgay were the first known to have scaled Everest.

   • 1918, Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Land That Time Forgot Chapter IX

     At last I came to the great barrier-cliffs; and after three days of mad effort--of maniacal effort--I scaled them. I built crude ladders; I wedged sticks in narrow fissures; I chopped toe-holds and finger-holds with my long knife; but at last I scaled them. Near the summit I came upon a huge cavern.

   • 1932, Dorothy L Sayers, Have his Carcase, Chapter 1.

     A solitary rock is always attractive. All right-minded people feel an overwhelming desire to scale and sit upon it.

3. (intransitive, computing) To tolerate significant increases in throughput or other potentially limiting factors.

   That architecture won't scale to real-world environments.

4. (transitive) To weigh, measure or grade according to a scale or system.
   • (Can we date this quote?) William Shakespeare

     Scaling his present bearing with his past.

• scale back
• scale down
• scale up

• scaling ladder

From Middle English scale, borrowed from Old French escale, from Frankish and/or Old High German skala, from Proto-Germanic *skalō. Cognate with Old English scealu (“shell, husk”), whence the modern doublet shale. Further cognate with Dutch schaal, German Schale, French écale. Also related with English shell, French écaille, Italian scaglia.

scale (plural scales)

1. Part of an overlapping arrangement of many small, flat and hard pieces of keratin covering the skin of an animal, particularly a fish or reptile.
   • (Can we date this quote?) John Milton

     Fish that, with their fins and shining scales, / Glide under the green wave.

2. A small piece of pigmented chitin, many of which coat the wings of a butterfly or moth to give them their color.
3. A flake of skin of an animal afflicted with dermatitis.
4. Part of an overlapping arrangement of many small, flat and hard protective layers forming a pinecone that flare when mature to release pine nut seeds.
5. The flaky material sloughed off heated metal.
6. Scale mail (as opposed to chain mail).
7. Limescale.
8. A scale insect.
9. The thin metallic side plate of the handle of a pocketknife.

• antiscalant

scale (third-person singular simple present scales, present participle scaling, simple past and past participle scaled)

1. (transitive) To remove the scales of.

   Please scale that fish for dinner.

2. (intransitive) To become scaly; to produce or develop scales.

   The dry weather is making my skin scale.

3. (transitive) To strip or clear of scale; to descale.

   to scale the inside of a boiler

4. (transitive) To take off in thin layers or scales, as tartar from the teeth; to pare off, as a surface.
   • (Can we date this quote?) T. Burnet

     if all the mountains were scaled, and the earth made even

5. (intransitive) To separate and come off in thin layers or laminae.

   Some sandstone scales by exposure.

   • (Can we date this quote?) Francis Bacon

     Those that cast their shell are the lobster and crab; the old skins are found, but the old shells never; so it is likely that they scale off.

6. (Britain, Scotland, dialectal) To scatter; to spread.
7. (transitive) To clean, as the inside of a cannon, by the explosion of a small quantity of powder.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Totten to this entry?)

From Old Norse skál (“bowl”). Compare Danish skål (“bowl, cup”), Dutch schaal; German Schale; Old High German scāla; Gothic 𐍃𐌺𐌰𐌻𐌾𐌰 (skalja, “tile, brick”), Old English scealu (“cup; shell”). Cognate with scale, as in Etymology 2.

scale (plural scales)

1. A device to measure mass or weight.

   After the long, lazy winter I was afraid to get on the scale.

2. Either of the pans, trays, or dishes of a balance or scales.

• The noun is often used in the plural to denote a single device (originally a pair of scales had two pans).

• scale up on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• scale in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• scale in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.

• -clase, Salce, alecs, claes, laces

scale f pl

1. plural of scala

• calse, salce