scale

Etymology 1

From Middle English scale, from Latin scāla, 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

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.
   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. 2012-01, Robert L. Dorit, “Rereading Darwin”, in American Scientist, volume 100, number 1, archived from the original on 2012-11-14, page 23
   On an enormous scale was a blood-feast.
   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.
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.
   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. May 13, 2012, Phil McNulty, “Man City 3-2 QPR”, in BBC Sport
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.

verb

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.
   A solitary rock is always attractive. All right-minded people feel an overwhelming desire to scale and sit upon it. 1932, Dorothy L Sayers, chapter 1, in Have his Carcase
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.
   The kitchen-dining-buffet car scales 49.2 tons. 1962 July, G. Freeman Allen, “The New "Rheingold"”, in Modern Railways, page 25

Etymology 2

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

noun

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.
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.

verb

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.
   1684-1690, Thomas Burnet, Sacred Theory of the Earth if all the mountains and hills were scaled, and the earth made even
5. (intransitive) To separate and come off in thin layers or laminae.
   Some sandstone scales by exposure.
6. (UK, Scotland, dialect) To scatter; to spread.
7. (transitive) To clean, as the inside of a cannon, by the explosion of a small quantity of powder.

Etymology 3

From Middle English scale, from Old Norse skál (“bowl”) from Proto-Germanic *skēlō. Compare Danish skål (“bowl, cup”), Dutch schaal, German Schale, Old High German scāla, Old English scealu (“cup”).

noun

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.