scale

Meaning

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.
2. (transitive) To climb to the top of.
3. (intransitive) To tolerate significant increases in throughput or other potentially limiting factors.
4. (transitive) To weigh, measure or grade according to a scale or system.
5. (transitive) To take measurements from (an engineering drawing), treating them as (or as if) reliable dimensional instructions. This practice often works but can produce latently incorrect results and is thus usually deprecated.

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.
3. Size; scope.
4. The ratio of depicted distance to actual distance.
5. A line or bar associated with a drawing, used to indicate measurement when the image has been magnified or reduced.
6. A series of notes spanning an octave, tritave, or pseudo-octave, used to make melodies.
7. A mathematical base for a numeral system; radix.
8. Gradation; succession of ascending and descending steps and degrees; progressive series; scheme of comparative rank or order.
9. A standard amount of money to be paid for a service, for example union-negotiated amounts received by a performer or writer; similar to wage scale or pay grade.

Noun

1. (countable, uncountable) 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. (countable, uncountable) A small piece of pigmented chitin, many of which coat the wings of a butterfly or moth to give them their color.
3. (countable, uncountable) A flake of skin of an animal afflicted with dermatitis.
4. (countable, uncountable) 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. (uncountable) The flaky material sloughed off heated metal.
6. (countable, uncountable) Scale mail (as opposed to chain mail).
7. (uncountable) Limescale.
8. (countable, uncountable) A scale insect.
9. (countable, uncountable) The thin metallic side plate of the handle of a pocketknife.
10. (US, uncountable) An infestation of scale insects on a plant; commonly thought of as, or mistaken for, a disease.

Noun

1. A device to measure mass or weight.
2. Either of the pans, trays, or dishes of a balance or scales.

Synonyms

climb

balance

measure

peel

ascend

dimension

shell

🐚

scope

gamut

squama

size

gauge

musical scale

range

extent

weighing machine

bulk

weigh

deposit

steelyard

fish scale

flake

clamber

scramble

scales

meter

breadth

sediment

exfoliation

scurf

plate

pluck

squame

graduated table

dial

ordered series

descale

gradations

ruler

scale of measurement

mount

skin

climb up

scab

precipitate

dregs

chart

💹

rate

notation

plan

Translations

écaille

échelle

🪜

escala

🪜

scala

🪜

Maßstab

Schuppe

schaal

🐚

squama

balance

bilancia

Skala

Waage

escala

escama

Pronounced as (IPA)

/skeɪl/

Etymology

Inherited from Middle English: scale

Cognate with Old English: sċealu

Cognate with Dutch: schaal

Cognate with German: Schale

Cognate with French: écale

Cognate with Danish: skål

In summary

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.

Sentences

The weight of the package was seen on the high scale .

Therefore , the scale has a very limited ability to assist in disaster-aid deployment .