scale

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See also: scalę and scałe

English

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WOTD – 14 January 2016
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A musical scale

Pronunciation

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Etymology 1

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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

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scale (plural scales)

  2. (obsolete) A ladder; a series of steps; a means of ascending.
  4. 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.
  6. Size; scope.
    On an enormous scale was a blood-feast.
    There are some who question the scale of our ambitions.
    • 2012 January, Robert L. Dorit, “Rereading Darwin”, in American Scientist‎[1], volume 100, number 1, archived from the original on 14 November 2012, 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.
  8. The ratio of depicted distance to actual distance.
    This map uses a scale of 1:10.
  10. 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, Chicago, Ill.: Field Museum of Natural History, →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.
  12. (music) A series of notes spanning an octave, tritave, or pseudo-octave, used to make melodies.
  14. A mathematical base for a numeral system; radix.
    the decimal scale, the binary scale
  16. Gradation; succession of ascending and descending steps and degrees; progressive series; scheme of comparative rank or order.
    • 1644, J[ohn] M[ilton], The Doctrine or Discipline of Divorce: […], 2nd edition, London: [s.n.], →OCLC, book:
      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[2]:
      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.
  18. 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.
    Sally wasn't the star of the show, so she was glad to be paid scale.
Hyponyms
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music
physics
others
Coordinate terms
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geography: Terms related to scale
music: Terms related to scale
Derived terms
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Descendants
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  • → Japanese: スケール (sukēru)
Translations
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See also
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References
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Verb

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

  2. (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.
  3. (transitive) To climb to the top of.
    Hilary and Norgay were the first known to have scaled Everest.
    • 1918 September–November, Edgar Rice Burroughs, “The Land That Time Forgot”, in The Blue Book Magazine, Chicago, Ill.: Story-press Corp., →OCLC; republished as chapter IX, in Hugo Gernsback, editor, Amazing Stories, (please specify |part=I to III), New York, N.Y.: Experimenter Publishing, 1927, →OCLC:
      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, chapter 1, in Have his Carcase:
      A solitary rock is always attractive. All right-minded people feel an overwhelming desire to scale and sit upon it.
    • 1941, Theodore Roethke, “Feud”, in Open House; republished in The Collected Poems of Theodore Roethke, 1975, →ISBN, page 4:
      The dead leap at the throat, destroy
      The meaning of the day; dark forms
      Have scaled your walls, and spies betray
      Old secrets to amorphous swarms.
  4. (intransitive, computing) To tolerate significant increases in throughput or other potentially limiting factors.
    That architecture won't scale to real-world environments.
  5. (transitive) To weigh, measure or grade according to a scale or system.
Hyponyms
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Translations
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Etymology 2

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Teleost scales (sense 1)

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

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scale (countable and uncountable, plural scales)

  2. 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
    • 1667, John Milton, “Book VII”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC:
      Fish that, with their fins and shining scales, / Glide under the green wave.
  3. A small piece of pigmented chitin, many of which coat the wings of a butterfly or moth to give them their color.
  4. A flake of skin of an animal afflicted with dermatitis.
  5. 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.
  6. (uncountable) The flaky material sloughed off heated metal.
    Hyponym: mill scale
  7. Scale mail (as opposed to chain mail).
  8. (uncountable) Limescale.
  9. A scale insect.
  10. The thin metallic side plate of the handle of a pocketknife.
  11. (uncountable, US) An infestation of scale insects on a plant; commonly thought of as, or mistaken for, a disease.
Derived terms
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Descendants
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Translations
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Verb

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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.
    Synonym: descale
  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.
    • 1627 (indicated as 1626), Francis [Bacon], “(please specify the page, or |century=I to X)”, in Sylua Syluarum: Or A Naturall Historie. In Ten Centuries. […], London: […] William Rawley […]; [p]rinted by J[ohn] H[aviland] for William Lee […], →OCLC:
      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. (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.
Derived terms
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Translations
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Etymology 3

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A digital kitchen scale.
A balance scale with weights.

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

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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.
Usage notes
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  • The noun is often used in the plural to denote a single device (originally a pair of scales had two pans).
Derived terms
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Descendants
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Translations
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Further reading
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Anagrams

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Italian

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Pronunciation

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  • IPA(key): /ˈska.le/
  • Rhymes: -ale
  • Hyphenation: scà‧le

Noun

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scale f pl

  1. plural of scala

Anagrams

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Middle English

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Etymology 1

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From Old French escale.

Alternative forms

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Pronunciation

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Noun

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scale (plural scales)

  1. flake
Descendants
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References
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Etymology 2

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From Latin scāla.

Alternative forms

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Noun

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scale (plural scales)

  1. ladder
Descendants
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References
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Etymology 3

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From Old Norse skál (“bowl”) from Proto-Germanic *skēlō.

Alternative forms

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Noun

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scale (plural scales)

  1. hut, hovel
References
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