scale

1. (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.Examples: "We should scale that up by a factor of 10."transitive

2. (transitive) To climb to the top of.Examples: "Hilary and Norgay were the first known to have scaled Everest."; "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."; "A solitary rock is always attractive. All right-minded people feel an overwhelming desire to scale and sit upon it."transitive

3. (intransitive, computing) To tolerate significant increases in throughput or other potentially limiting factors.Examples: "That architecture won't scale to real-world environments."intransitive

4. (transitive) To weigh, measure or grade according to a scale or system.Examples: "Scaling his present bearing with his past."; "The kitchen-dining-buffet car scales 49.2 tons."transitive

5. (manufacturing, transitive) 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.Examples: "Every single print that goes out our door has a warning in its title block telling the world, "Do not scale this drawing.""transitive

1. (uncountable) The flaky material sloughed off heated metal.uncountable

2. (uncountable) Limescale.uncountable

3. (uncountable, US) An infestation of scale insects on a plant; commonly thought of as, or mistaken for, a disease.USuncountable

1. (transitive) To remove the scales of.Examples: "Please scale that fish for dinner."Synonyms: descaletransitive

2. (intransitive) To become scaly; to produce or develop scales.Examples: "The dry weather is making my skin scale."intransitive

3. (transitive) To strip or clear of scale; to descale.Examples: "to scale the inside of a boiler"transitive

4. (transitive) To take off in thin layers or scales, as tartar from the teeth; to pare off, as a surface.Examples: "1684-1690, Thomas Burnet, Sacred Theory of the Earth if all the mountains and hills were scaled, and the earth made even"transitive

5. (intransitive) To separate and come off in thin layers or laminae.Examples: "Some sandstone scales by exposure."; "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."intransitive

6. (UK, Scotland, dialect) To scatter; to spread.ScotlandUKdialectal