escala

Forms

escala f (plural escalas)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin scāla (“step; ladder”).^[2][3][4][1] Latin mostly used the word in the plural for “steps”, “ladder” or “staircase”, but some late authors used the singular in this sense.^[2] Because the word is recorded late in Castilian, Corominas considers whether it might be a learned word, but rejects the idea: the word was kept for the portable ladder, which texts mention less often than escalera, a word that covered both the ladder and the staircase.^[2] That word goes back to a Latin plural, scalaria.^[2][3]

The same Latin word is Catalan escala, Occitan escala, French échelle, Italian scala and Romanian scară.^[5][1] Portuguese and Galician use instead the derivative Portuguese escada (in the old language Old Galician-Portuguese escaada), from a base Vulgar Latin *scalata.^[6][7][2] De Vaan lists the Latin noun among the derivatives of scandō (“to climb, ascend”), and Wiktionary derives it, through a suffixed form, from Proto-Indo-European *skend-.^[8][1]

The sense “port of call, stopover” has a history of its own.^[2] In the Greek of Constantinople the Latin loanword σκάλα (skála) named the stone landing stairs of the quay, then a landing stage and a city's harbour.^[2] It reached Italy, where it is first recorded in Venice in 1082, and Turkish and Arabic, and Spanish took it from Italian.^[2][4][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas's first record is in Alonso de Palencia (1490).^[2][3] The CDH has earlier hits: in the Castigos of 1293 a woman is thrown porlas escalas ayuso “down the stairs”, and in the Crónica del moro Rasis (c. 1300–1344, in a 15th-century copy) a castle is so high that no escala can be set against it.^[9] Corominas notes the sense “scaling ladder” also in the Leonese manuscript of the Libro de Alexandre, where the Aragonese one has escalera.^[2]

Semantic evolution

In the late 14th century Juan Fernández de Heredia used escala both for scaling ladders and for a port where ships put in.^[9] Corominas finds the harbour sense in Castilian from González de Clavijo (1406–1412).^[2] Covarrubias (1611) defined the word as a ladder that is set up and removed, one of the engines of war, and noted the cosmographers' scale of leagues for measuring distances on a map.^[10] The Diccionario de Autoridades added the rope ladder, the port of call, the trading port, the divided line for drawing plans and the musical scale.^[11] In 1884 the Academy derived the harbour sense from Italian, and that in turn from Arabic.^[12]

Today the main senses are an ordered series of values (escala de colores), the graduation of an instrument, the ratio of a map or plan, the size of a plan, the stopover of a ship or aircraft and the musical scale.^[4][1]

Timeline

• 1293 – the Castigos (BNM ms. 6559) uses escalas for stairs.^[9]
• 1379–1384 – Fernández de Heredia's translation of Plutarch has escala o puerto for a place to land.^[9]
• 1406–1412 – González de Clavijo uses it for a port of call.^[2]
• 1490 – Alonso de Palencia, Corominas's first record.^[2][3]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija: escala o escalera, Latin scalae.^[13]
• 1611 – Covarrubias records the scaling ladder and the cosmographers' scale.^[10]
• 1732 – the Diccionario de Autoridades has the port of call, the drawing scale and the musical scale.^[11]
• 1843 – the derivative escalafón is first recorded.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. A ladder of wood, rope or both.^[4][1]
2. An ordered series of different values of one quality: una escala de grises.^[4][1]
3. A ranking of staff by grade or seniority (escalafón).^[4][1]
4. The graduation of a measuring instrument.^[4]
5. A line divided into equal parts representing metres or kilometres, used to draw a map or plan in proportion.^[4]
6. The scale of a map, plan or design: un plano a escala 1:500.^[4][1]
7. The size or extent on which a plan or idea is carried out.^[4][1]
8. A stopover made by a ship or aircraft between its origin and its destination.^[4][1]
9. A place where ships or aircraft call between their origin and destination, a port of call.^[4][1]
10. (music) A diatonic or chromatic series of notes, a musical scale.^[4][1]

Word family

• escalera
• escalar
• escalinata
• escalón
• escalafón
• escaleta

Related words

• Latin scāla
• Italian scala

Usage notes

A escala “to scale” is used of models and reproductions, escala técnica is a stop made for the needs of the voyage, such as refuelling, and escala de gato is a rope ladder for boarding a ship at sea.^[4]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 665
3. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. escala
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Real Academia Española; Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2014–), Diccionario de la lengua española, 23rd ed., online version 23.8, https://dle.rae.es, p. s.v. escala
5. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. s.v. scala
6. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. scala
7. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. 1380
8. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
9. ^ a b c d Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. escala
10. ^ a b Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 759
11. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 3, 548
12. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 445
13. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 348