Sekirov Dictionary

scale

/skeɪl/

noun21

  1. the size of something, or how much it covers
  2. An ordered, usually numerical sequence used for measurement; means of assigning a magnitude.
  3. Gradation; succession of ascending and descending steps and degrees; progressive series; scheme of comparative rank or order.
  4. A device to measure mass or weight.
  5. The ratio of depicted distance to actual distance.
  6. A line or bar associated with a drawing, used to indicate measurement when the image has been magnified or reduced.
  7. 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.
  8. A small piece of pigmented chitin, many of which coat the wings of a butterfly or moth to give them their color.
  9. 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.
  10. A series of notes spanning an octave, tritave, or pseudo-octave, used to make melodies.
  11. The flaky material sloughed off heated metal.
  12. Limescale.
  13. 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.
  14. Either of the pans, trays, or dishes of a balance or scales.
  15. A scale insect.
  16. An infestation of scale insects on a plant; commonly thought of as, or mistaken for, a disease.
  17. A flake of skin of an animal afflicted with dermatitis.
  18. Scale mail (as opposed to chain mail).
  19. A mathematical base for a numeral system; radix.
  20. The thin metallic side plate of the handle of a pocketknife.
  21. (no longer used) A ladder; a series of steps; a means of ascending.

verb13

  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.
  2. To climb to the top of.
  3. To tolerate significant increases in throughput or other potentially limiting factors.
  4. To handle heavily increasing loads without breaking down.
  5. To increase revenues exponentially without proportional increases in costs.
  6. To remove the scales of.
  7. To take off in thin layers or scales, as tartar from the teeth; to pare off, as a surface.
  8. To separate and come off in thin layers or laminae.
  9. To weigh, measure or grade according to a scale or system.
  10. To take measurements from (an engineering drawing), treating them as (or as if) reliable dimensional instructions.
  11. To become scaly; to produce or develop scales.
  12. To clean, as the inside of a cannon, by the explosion of a small quantity of powder.
  13. (dialect, UK) To scatter; to spread.
forms

scaled · scaling · scales · scaleth · scalest

Phrases with scale

This dictionary works without the internet: on your phone · in Chrome