Scales

Part of speech: noun

Pronunciation: /skeɪlz/

Definitions

1. A device used to measure weight or mass ; a set of musical pitches arranged by frequency ; small, flat, often overlapping plates forming protective covering on animals or objects
2. An apparatus for determining heaviness or load ; a sequence of tones organized in ascending or descending order in music ; thin, hard plates covering skin like those found on fish or reptiles
3. Equipment that assesses the weight of items ; an ordered pattern of notes used to compose melodies ; tiny, rigid structures that cover the surfaces of certain animals or objects as protection

Etymology: The most surprising thing about this word is that the weighing sense and the fish-covering sense are different words that happen to look identical. The weighing sense comes from Old Norse "skál", meaning "bowl" or "cup", which entered English through Northern Middle English. The idea is simple: a balance was originally two bowl-like pans hung from a beam, and the pans themselves came to be called the scales. The word for the flat plates on a fish or the layers on a reptile is a separate line. It descends from a Proto-Germanic word for a shell or husk, which also gave Old English "sċealu" and the modern "shale", a rock that splits into thin layered sheets. A third sense, the graded series of marks on a ruler or thermometer, traces back to Latin "scāla", meaning a flight of steps or ladder, the same root as "scale" in the sense of climbing.

Synonyms: measures, gradations, levels, proportions, gradients

Antonyms: uniformity, sameness, equalization, monotony, flatness