scale

/skeɪl/

noun

1
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.”
3
Size; scope.
“The Holocaust was insanity on an enormous scale.”
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
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.
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.”

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 weigh, measure or grade according to a scale or system.

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.

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 strip or clear of scale; to descale.
“to scale the inside of a boiler”
4
To take off in thin layers or scales, as tartar from the teeth; to pare off, as a surface.
5
To separate and come off in thin layers or laminae.
“Some sandstone scales by exposure.”
6
To scatter; to spread.
7
To clean, as the inside of a cannon, by the explosion of a small quantity of powder.

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.

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