scale

English has three main words spelled scale: the plate on a fish's skin, the pan of a balance, and a series of steps or degrees.^[1][2] The first two share a Germanic root and are related to shell; the third is from Latin scāla “ladder”.^[2][3]

Pronunciation

• IPA: /skeɪl/^[4]

scale¹ plate

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English scale,^[5] borrowed from Old French escale (“cup, shell, pod, husk”),^[3][1] from *skala or another Germanic source,^[3][1] from Proto-Germanic *skæla, “to split, divide”,^[3] the source also of Old High German scala “shell”, Gothic skalja “tile” and Old English scealu “shell, husk”,^[3][5] from Proto-Indo-European *skel- (“to cut”).^[3] The verb, “to remove scales”, is from the noun.^[3][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

A thin hard plate on the skin of a fish or snake: about 1300, in the romance Guy of Warwick,^[1] the early 14th century in the OED.^[6]

Semantic evolution

Of human skin diseases it is from the late 14th century, and in botany, of the coverings of leaf buds, by 1776.^[3] The scales that fall from one's eyes, usually figurative, echo Acts 9:18.^[3] The verb meant “to scrape, remove infected parts” before 1425 and “to remove the scales from” in 1440.^[1] “To come off in thin layers” is from the 1520s.^[3] Scaly is from before 1398.^[1]

Timeline

• c. 1300 – a scale of a fish.^[1]
• late 14th century – of skin diseases.^[3]
• before 1398 – scaly.^[1]
• 1440 – verb, to remove scales.^[1]
• 1520s – to flake off.^[3]
• 1776 – in botany.^[3]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. One of the small hard plates covering the skin of fish, reptiles and some mammals.
2. A similar part, as on the wings of butterflies or covering a leaf bud.
3. A flake of dry skin; a crust or deposit, as of limescale or tartar.

Verb

1. To remove the scales or a coating from.
2. To come off in thin layers.

Word family

• scaly
• scaling
• descale

scale² balance

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English scale, scole,^[5] borrowed from Old Norse skál (“bowl, drinking cup; in the plural, weighing scales”),^[3][1][7] cognate with Old Saxon skāla “cup”, Dutch schaal and German Schale “bowl”.^[3][1] It comes from a noun derived from Proto-Germanic *skæla, “to split”, and is related to Old Norse skel “shell”.^[3][1] The connecting idea seems to be half of a split shell used as a cup or as a pan for weighing;^[3] Paulus Diaconus, however, linked the “cup” sense to a supposed custom of making goblets from skulls.^[3] The verb, “to weigh”, is from the noun.^[3][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

A drinking cup or bowl: probably before 1200, in the Ancrene Riwle,^[1] about 1200 in Etymonline and about 1205 in the OED.^[3][6]

Semantic evolution

The “cup” sense probably passed to the pans of a balance (late 14th century),^[2][3] and the name was then extended to the whole weighing instrument in the early 15th century.^[3] The “cup” sense survives in South African English.^[2][6] The Scales, the sign Libra, is from 1631.^[6] To turn the scale is from about 1440,^[6] and to hold the scales even, “to judge fairly”, from 1648.^[6] The verb meant “to weigh” from the 1690s,^[3] the 17th century in Hoad.^[7] In Yorkshire dialect a scale was formerly a drinking cup.^[8]

Timeline

• before 1200 – a drinking cup.^[1]
• c. 1375 – the pan of a balance.^[6]
• early 15th century – a weighing instrument.^[3]
• 1631 – the sign Libra.^[6]
• 1690s – verb, to weigh.^[3]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. An instrument for weighing, often in the plural: bathroom scales.
2. Either pan of a balance.

Verb

1. To weigh, or to have a certain weight.

Word family

• scales
• Libra

scale³ series

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin scāla (“ladder, flight of stairs”), usually plural scālae,^[3][1] from *scansla, from the stem of scandere (“to climb”),^[3][1] the source of scan, from Proto-Indo-European *skand- (“to spring, leap, climb”).^[3] The musical sense and the sense “proportion of a map” came through scala.^[3] The verb, “to climb with a ladder”, is from the noun.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

A series of marks along a line for measuring: 1391, in Chaucer's Treatise on the Astrolabe.^[1][3] The verb, “to climb a wall by a ladder”, is from about 1380.^[1]

Semantic evolution

Middle English also had scale, “ladder used in sieges”, about 1400.^[3] The musical sense, a fixed series of tones, is from the 1590s,^[3] 1597 in Barnhart,^[1] and the general sense “a series of steps or degrees” from about 1600.^[3][1] A standard of measurement or estimation, as in on a large scale, is in Bacon's Sylva Sylvarum (1626),^[1] and the proportion of a map to what it shows from 1662.^[1] The verb came to mean “to climb” in general before 1425,^[1] “to measure by a scale” in 1798,^[3] and “to reduce in proportion” in American English in 1790;^[1] scale down is by 1887.^[3]

Timeline

• c. 1380 – verb, to climb by ladder.^[1]
• 1391 – a series of marks.^[1]
• 1597 – a musical scale.^[1]
• c. 1600 – a series of steps.^[3][1]
• 1626 – a standard of estimation.^[1]
• 1662 – the scale of a map.^[1]
• 1790 – verb, to reduce in proportion.^[1]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. A series of marks at regular intervals, used for measuring.
2. A graded system or series: a pay scale.
3. The proportion between the size of a map or model and the thing it represents.
4. Relative size or extent: on a grand scale.
5. (music) A series of notes rising or falling in pitch by fixed steps.

Verb

1. To climb up or over.
2. To make or change in proportion: scale down.

Word family

• scalable
• escalate
• escalator
• large-scale

Related words

• scaling ladder
• shell
• skill
• scallop
• shale
• scan
• ascend
• descend

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
2. ^ a b c d Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
5. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ a b c d e f g h Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b c Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)