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scale

/skeɪl/noun, verb

scale is spelled S-C-A-L-E: 5 letters and one syllable. It appears 68 times per million words in written English, the 1,562nd most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a noun, scale means “An ordered, usually numerical sequence used for measurement; means of assigning a magnitude” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of scale is scales.

How many letters and syllables are in scale?

Letters5: S-C-A-L-E
Syllables1
In writing68 times per million words; the 1,562nd most frequent word form
Wrong spellings searchednone measured in search
Rhymes with
Same letters

Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.

How common is scale?

Scale appears 68 times per million words in written English, the 1,562nd most frequent word form in the list.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

How do you pronounce scale?

  • US /skeɪl/
  • US [skeɪ̯(ə)ɫ]
  • Australia /skæɪl/

Scale has one syllable.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Naomi_Persephone_Amethyst_(NaomiAmethyst)-scale.wav, En-us-scale.ogg, En-au-scale.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

What rhymes with scale?

The 12 most written words on PlainSpell end in the same sounds as scale from its last stressed vowel (/eɪl/):

Spelled with the same letters in another order: laces, claes, selca.

Computed by PlainSpell from the pronunciations in the English Wiktionary (dump of September 2, 2026): a rhyme shares every sound from the last stressed vowel to the end; ordered by written frequency (wordfreq 3.1).

Forms of scale

  • scales plural, present, singular, he/she/it
  • scaling participle, present
  • scaled participle, past

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What does scale mean?

The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).

noun

  1. 1

    obsoleteA ladder; a series of steps; a means of ascending.

  2. 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. 3

    Size; scope.

    There are some who question the scale of our ambitions.

  4. 4

    The ratio of depicted distance to actual distance.

    This map uses a scale of 1:10.

  5. 5

    A line or bar associated with a drawing, used to indicate measurement when the image has been magnified or reduced.

  6. 6

    A series of notes spanning an octave, tritave, or pseudo-octave, used to make melodies.

  7. 7

    A mathematical base for a numeral system; radix.

    the decimal scale, the binary scale

  8. 8

    Gradation; succession of ascending and descending steps and degrees; progressive series; scheme of comparative rank or order.

  9. 9

    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.

  10. 10

    A small piece of pigmented chitin, many of which coat the wings of a butterfly or moth to give them their color.

  11. 11

    A flake of skin of an animal afflicted with dermatitis.

  12. 12

    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.

  13. 13

    The flaky material sloughed off heated metal.

  14. 14

    Scale mail (as opposed to chain mail).

  15. 15

    Limescale.

  16. 16

    A scale insect.

  17. 17

    A device to measure mass or weight.

    After the long, lazy winter I was afraid to get on the scale.

  18. 18

    Either of the pans, trays, or dishes of a balance or scales.

verb

  1. 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. 2

    To climb to the top of.

    Hilary and Norgay were the first known to have scaled Everest.

  3. 3

    To tolerate significant increases in throughput or other potentially limiting factors.

    That architecture won't scale to real-world environments.

  4. 4

    To handle heavily increasing loads without breaking down.

  5. 5

    To increase revenues exponentially without proportional increases in costs.

  6. 6

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

  7. 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."

  8. 8

    To remove the scales of.

    Please scale that fish for dinner.

  9. 9

    To become scaly; to produce or develop scales.

    The dry weather is making my skin scale.

  10. 10

    To take off in thin layers or scales, as tartar from the teeth; to pare off, as a surface.

  11. 11

    To separate and come off in thin layers or laminae.

    Some sandstone scales by exposure.

  12. 12

    ScotlandUKTo scatter; to spread.

  13. 13

    To clean, as the inside of a cannon, by the explosion of a small quantity of powder.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

Scale in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Frenchéchelle (sequence for measurement), gamme (series of notes), agrandir, réduire (to change size of), escalader (to climb), écaille (keratin pieces covering the skin of certain…)
GermanSkala (sequence for measurement), Tonleiter (series of notes), skalieren (to change size of), besteigen (to climb), Ausmaß (size or scope), Maßstab (ratio of distances)
Portugueseescala (sequence for measurement), escalar (to change size of), escama (keratin pieces covering the skin of certain…), tamanho (size or scope), proporção (line or bar used to indicate measurement), escamar (remove the scales of)
Spanishescala (sequence for measurement), agrandar (to change size of), envergadura, magnitud, tamaño, inmensidad (size or scope)

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does scale come from?

From Middle English scale, from Latin scāla, usually in plural scālae (“a flight of steps, stairs, staircase, ladder”), for *skand-slā, from scandō (“to climb”); see scan, ascend, descend, etc. Doublet of scala.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What to look up after scale