SCALE
What does "SCALE" mean?
A graduated system of marks or values used to measure, compare, or rank things.
Meanings
- A range or graduated series used for measuring or judging, such as marks on an instrument. On a scale of one to ten, the pain was an eight.
- The relative size or extent of something. The disaster was unprecedented in scale.
- A device for weighing. She stepped on the bathroom scale and sighed.
- An ordered sequence of musical notes, ascending or descending in pitch. He practiced the C major scale until his fingers ached. technical
- One of the small, thin plates covering the skin of fish and reptiles. The fish glittered with silver scales in the net.
- To climb up or over something steep or high. They scaled the cliff before dawn.
Did you know?
- The musical scale and the verb 'to scale a wall' share one Latin root, 'scala' (ladder) - notes are literally rungs you climb, while the fish 'scale' and the weighing 'scale' come from entirely unrelated words.
Word origin
Multiple roots: the 'ladder/climb' and 'music' senses from Latin 'scala' (ladder); the 'fish plate' sense from Old French 'escale' (shell, husk); the 'weighing' sense from Old Norse 'skal' (bowl).
Remember it
SCALE = a ladder ('scala'); whether you climb notes, walls, or numbers, you go rung by rung.
A little poem
Notes are rungs, and a cliff is rungs of stone,
and the kitchen needle weighs the bread alone-
three strangers wearing one word like a coat.
tercet
Wordplay
- The fish refused piano lessons. It said it already had all the scales it needed.
What it teaches
Whether you weigh, measure, or climb, the same word reminds you: everything is judged against a ladder of rungs.
Quick facts
What does SCALE mean?
A graduated system of marks or values used to measure, compare, or rank things.
Is SCALE a valid word?
Yes — SCALE is one of the answer words in Wordul, the daily word game.
How many letters is SCALE?
SCALE has 5 letters and 1 syllable.
Where does SCALE come from?
Multiple roots: the 'ladder/climb' and 'music' senses from Latin 'scala' (ladder); the 'fish plate' sense from Old French 'escale' (shell, husk); the 'weighing' sense from Old Norse 'skal' (bowl).
What can SCALE teach us?
Whether you weigh, measure, or climb, the same word reminds you: everything is judged against a ladder of rungs.
How players do
Be the first to solve it.