scale

Fetched 2026-10-27 (live).

Synonyms: stale, scape, scald, swale, scalp, sale, scyle, scare, scaly, scall, shale

Antonyms: stale, scape, scald, swale, scalp, sale, scyle, scare, scaly, scall, shale

Related words from Datamuse; suggestions, not definitions.

Noun

1. 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.
2. Size; scope.
   • There are some who question the scale of our ambitions.
3. The ratio of depicted distance to actual distance.
   • This map uses a scale of 1:10.
4. A line or bar associated with a drawing, used to indicate measurement when the image has been magnified or reduced.
5. A series of notes spanning an octave, tritave, or pseudo-octave, used to make melodies.
6. A mathematical base for a numeral system; radix.
   • the decimal scale, the binary scale
7. Gradation; succession of ascending and descending steps and degrees; progressive series; scheme of comparative rank or order.
8. 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.
9. A ladder; a series of steps; a means of ascending.

Verb

1. 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. To climb to the top of.
   • Hilary and Norgay were the first known to have scaled Everest.
3. To tolerate significant increases in throughput or other potentially limiting factors.
   • That architecture won't scale to real-world environments.
4. : To handle heavily increasing loads without breaking down.
5. : To increase revenues exponentially without proportional increases in costs.
6. To weigh, measure or grade according to a scale or system.
7. To take measurements from (an engineering drawing), treating them as (or as if) reliable dimensional instructions.
   • Every single drawing in the specification has a warning in its title block which reads, "Do not scale this drawing."

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.
10. An infestation of scale insects on a plant; commonly thought of as, or mistaken for, a disease.

Verb

1. To remove the scales of.
   • Please scale that fish for dinner.
2. To become scaly; to produce or develop scales.
   • The dry weather is making my skin scale.
3. To take off in thin layers or scales, as tartar from the teeth; to pare off, as a surface.
4. To separate and come off in thin layers or laminae.
   • Some sandstone scales by exposure.
5. To scatter; to spread.
6. To clean, as the inside of a cannon, by the explosion of a small quantity of powder.

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.

Source: Wiktionary · CC BY-SA 3.0 (Wiktionary) · cached copy, not a rewrite.