From Middle Englishscale, from Latinscāla, usually in plural scālae(“a flight of steps, stairs, staircase, ladder”), for *skand-slā, from scandō(“I climb”); see scan, ascend, descend, etc. Doublet of scala.
Noun
scale (pluralscales)
(obsolete) A ladder; a series of steps; a means of ascending.
An ordered, usually numerical sequence used for measurement; means of assigning a magnitude.
Size; scope.
There are some who question the scale of our ambitions.
The ratio of depicted distance to actual distance.
This map uses a scale of 1:10.
A line or bar associated with a drawing, used to indicate measurement when the image has been magnified or reduced.
(music) A series of notes spanning an octave, tritave, or pseudo-octave, used to make melodies.
A mathematical base for a numeral system; radix.
the decimal scale; the binary scale
Gradation; succession of ascending and descending steps and degrees; progressive series; scheme of comparative rank or order.
A standard amount of money to be paid for a service, for example union-negotiated amounts received by a performer or writer.
Sally wasn't the star of the show, so she was glad to be paid scale.
scale (third-person singular simple presentscales, present participlescaling, simple past and past participlescaled)
(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.
(transitive) To climb to the top of.
(intransitive, computing) To tolerate significant increases in throughput or other potentially limiting factors.
That architecture won't scale to real-world environments.
(transitive) To weigh, measure or grade according to a scale or system.
Hyponyms
scale back
scale down
scale out
scale up
Related terms
scaling ladder
Translations
Etymology 2
From Middle Englishscale, from Old Frenchescale, from Frankish and/or Old High Germanskala, from Proto-Germanic*skalō. Cognate with Old Englishsċealu(“shell, husk”), whence the modern doublet shale. Further cognate with Dutchschaal, GermanSchale, Frenchécale.
Noun
scale (countable and uncountable, pluralscales)
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.
Hyponyms:fish scale, fish-scale, fishscale
A small piece of pigmented chitin, many of which coat the wings of a butterfly or moth to give them their color.
A flake of skin of an animal afflicted with dermatitis.
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.
(uncountable) The flaky material sloughed off heated metal.
Hyponym:mill scale
Scale mail (as opposed to chain mail).
(uncountable) Limescale.
A scale insect.
The thin metallic side plate of the handle of a pocketknife.
Derived terms
Descendants
→ Japanese: スケール(sukēru)
Translations
Verb
scale (third-person singular simple presentscales, present participlescaling, simple past and past participlescaled)
(transitive) To remove the scales of.
Synonym:descale
(intransitive) To become scaly; to produce or develop scales.
(transitive) To strip or clear of scale; to descale.
(transitive) To take off in thin layers or scales, as tartar from the teeth; to pare off, as a surface.
1684-1690, Thomas Burnet, Sacred Theory of the Earth
if all the mountains and hills were scaled, and the earth made even
(intransitive) To separate and come off in thin layers or laminae.
(UK, Scotland, dialect) To scatter; to spread.
(transitive) To clean, as the inside of a cannon, by the explosion of a small quantity of powder.
Derived terms
scale off
Translations
Etymology 3
From Middle Englishscale, from Old Norseskál(“bowl”) from Proto-Germanic*skēlō. Compare Danishskål(“bowl, cup”), Dutchschaal, German Schale, Old High German scāla, Old English scealu(“cup”).
Noun
scale (pluralscales)
A device to measure mass or weight.
Either of the pans, trays, or dishes of a balance or scales.
Usage notes
The noun is often used in the plural to denote a single device (originally a pair of scales had two pans).
Derived terms
platform scale
sample scale
suspension scale
tip the scale
torsion scale
turn the scale
Descendants
→ Japanese: スケール(sukēru)
Translations
Further reading
scale up on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
“scale”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
“scale”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
“scale”, in The Century Dictionary[…], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.