scale

Plural: scales

Noun

• an ordered reference standard
  • "judging on a scale of 1 to 10"
• relative magnitude
  • "they entertained on a grand scale"
• the ratio between the size of something and a representation of it
  • "the scale of the map"
  • "the scale of the model"
• a specialized leaf or bract that protects a bud or catkin
• a thin flake of dead epidermis shed from the surface of the skin
• (music) a series of notes differing in pitch according to a specific scheme (usually within an octave)
• a measuring instrument for weighing; shows amount of mass
• an indicator having a graduated sequence of marks
• a metal sheathing of uniform thickness (such as the shield attached to an artillery piece to protect the gunners)
• a flattened rigid plate forming part of the body covering of many animals
• 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.
• The ratio of depicted distance to actual distance.
• A line or bar associated with a drawing, used to indicate measurement when the image has been magnified or reduced.
• A series of notes spanning an octave, tritave, or pseudo-octave, used to make melodies.
• A mathematical base for a numeral system; radix.
• 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; similar to wage scale or pay grade.
• 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.
• 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.
• The flaky material sloughed off heated metal.
• Scale mail (as opposed to chain mail).
• Limescale.
• A scale insect.
• The thin metallic side plate of the handle of a pocketknife.
• An infestation of scale insects on a plant; commonly thought of as, or mistaken for, a disease.
• A device to measure mass or weight.
• Either of the pans, trays, or dishes of a balance or scales.

Verb

Verb Forms: scaled, scaling, scales

• To climb up or over something, often steep or difficult.
• measure by or as if by a scale
  • "This bike scales only 25 pounds"
• pattern, make, regulate, set, measure, or estimate according to some rate or standard
• take by attacking with scaling ladders
  • "The troops scaled the walls of the fort"
• reach the highest point of
  • "We scaled the Mont Blanc"
• climb up by means of a ladder
• remove the scales from
  • "scale fish"
• measure with or as if with scales
  • "scale the gold"
• size or measure according to a scale
  • "This model must be scaled down"
• 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.
• To climb to the top of.
• To tolerate significant increases in throughput or other potentially limiting factors.
• To weigh, measure or grade according to a scale or system.
• 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.
• To remove the scales of.
• To become scaly; to produce or develop scales.
• To strip or clear of scale; to descale.
• To take off in thin layers or scales, as tartar from the teeth; to pare off, as a surface.
• To separate and come off in thin layers or laminae.
• To scatter; to spread.
• To clean, as the inside of a cannon, by the explosion of a small quantity of powder.

Examples

• After the long, lazy winter I was afraid to get on the scale.
• Every single print that goes out our door has a warning in its title block telling the world, "Do not scale this drawing."
• Hilary and Norgay were the first known to have scaled Everest.
• Please rate your experience on a scale from 1 to 10.
• Please scale that fish for dinner.
• Sally wasn't the star of the show, so she was glad to be paid scale.
• She had to SCALE the difficult letter arrangement to form a bingo on Words With Friends.
• Some sandstone scales by exposure.
• That architecture won't scale to real-world environments.
• the decimal scale, the binary scale
• The dry weather is making my skin scale.
• The magnitude of an earthquake is measured on the open-ended Richter scale.
• There are some who question the scale of our ambitions.
• This map uses a scale of 1:10.
• to scale the inside of a boiler
• We should scale that up by a factor of 10.

Synonyms

descale, exfoliation, graduated table, musical scale, ordered series, plate, scale leaf, scale of measurement, scurf, shell, surmount, weighing machine, scales

Related Words

degree, ordinal variable, scaling ladder

Anagrams of scale