scale – English verb conjugation

English verb forms of scale

Nominal Forms

Infinitive: to scale
Participle: scaled
Gerund: scaling

Cognates

-

Indicative

Present

Iscale
youscale
he;she;itscales
wescale
youscale
theyscale

Perfect

Ihave scaled
youhave scaled
he;she;ithas scaled
wehave scaled
youhave scaled
theyhave scaled

Past

Iscaled
youscaled
he;she;itscaled
wescaled
youscaled
theyscaled

Pluperfect

Ihad scaled
youhad scaled
he;she;ithad scaled
wehad scaled
youhad scaled
theyhad scaled

Future

Iwill scale
youwill scale
he;she;itwill scale
wewill scale
youwill scale
theywill scale

Future Perfect

Iwill have scaled
youwill have scaled
he;she;itwill have scaled
wewill have scaled
youwill have scaled
theywill have scaled

Subjunctive

Present

Iscale
youscale
he;she;itscale
wescale
youscale
theyscale

Perfect

Ihave scaled
youhave scaled
he;she;ithave scaled
wehave scaled
youhave scaled
theyhave scaled

Imperfect

Iscaled
youscaled
he;she;itscaled
wescaled
youscaled
theyscaled

Pluperfect

Ihad scaled
youhad scaled
he;she;ithad scaled
wehad scaled
youhad scaled
theyhad scaled

Conditional

Present

Iwould scale
youwould scale
he;she;itwould scale
wewould scale
youwould scale
theywould scale

Perfect

Iwould have scaled
youwould have scaled
he;she;itwould have scaled
wewould have scaled
youwould have scaled
theywould have scaled

Imperative

youscale
weLet's scale
youscale

Progressive (Continuous) Forms

Indicative

Present

Iam scaling
youare scaling
he;she;itis scaling
weare scaling
youare scaling
theyare scaling

Perfect

Ihave been scaling
youhave been scaling
he;she;ithas been scaling
wehave been scaling
youhave been scaling
theyhave been scaling

Past

Iwas scaling
youwere scaling
he;she;itwas scaling
wewere scaling
youwere scaling
theywere scaling

Pluperfect

Ihad been scaling
youhad been scaling
he;she;ithad been scaling
wehad been scaling
youhad been scaling
theyhad been scaling

Future

Iwill be scaling
youwill be scaling
he;she;itwill be scaling
wewill be scaling
youwill be scaling
theywill be scaling

Future Perfect

Iwill have been scaling
youwill have been scaling
he;she;itwill have been scaling
wewill have been scaling
youwill have been scaling
theywill have been scaling

Conditional

Present

Iwould be scaling
youwould be scaling
he;she;itwould be scaling
wewould be scaling
youwould be scaling
theywould be scaling

Perfect

Iwould have been scaling
youwould have been scaling
he;she;itwould have been scaling
wewould have been scaling
youwould have been scaling
theywould have been scaling

Other

Verbs similar to 'scale'

sale, scald, scalp, scape, scare, scyle, shale, stale, swale, avale,

Synonyms & Antonyms

Synonyms

peel
flake, delaminate, exfoliate, skin
measure
balance, compare, weigh, size, compute
climb
ascend, mount, progress, surmount

Additional Information

Phrasal Verbs

Etymology

1. "to climb," c.1380, from L. scala, from scandere "to climb" (see scan). This is also the source (perhaps via It. scala) of the noun in the musical sense (1597), and the meaning "proportion of a representation to the actual object" (1662). Scale down "reduce" is attested from 1887.
2. 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.

Sample Sentences

  • We should scale that up by a factor of 10.
  • Hilary and Norgay were the first known to have scaled Everest.
  • At last I came to the great barrier-cliffs; and after three days of mad effort—of maniacal effort—I scaled them. I built crude ladders; I wedged sticks in narrow fissures; I chopped toe-holds and finger-holds with my long knife; but at last I scaled them. Near the summit I came upon a huge cavern. [1918 September–November, Edgar Rice Burroughs, “The Land That Time Forgot”, in The Blue Book Magazine, Chicago, Ill.: Story-press Corp., →OCLC; republished as chapter IX, in Hugo Gernsback, editor, Amazing Stories, (please specify |part=I to III), New York, N.Y.: Experimenter Publishing, 1927, →OCLC:]
  • A solitary rock is always attractive. All right-minded people feel an overwhelming desire to scale and sit upon it. [1932, Dorothy L Sayers, chapter 1, in Have his Carcase:]
  • The dead leap at the throat, destroy
  • The meaning of the day; dark forms
  • Have scaled your walls, and spies betray
  • Old secrets to amorphous swarms. [1941, Theodore Roethke, “Feud”, in Open House, New York, N.Y.: Alfred A[braham] Knopf, →OCLC; republished in The Collected Poems of Theodore Roethke, London: Faber and Faber […], 1968, →OCLC, page 4:]
  • That architecture won't scale to real-world environments.
  • We started using the term “scaling” in place of “growing” around the late 1990s to early 2000s, primarily due to the rise of venture-backed startups in Silicon Valley. The term migrated from tech/infrastructure (“can this system scale?”) to startups (“can this business scale?”) [May 12, 2025, Sarah Levinger, Post of "X" (formerly "Twitter")]
  • We started using the term “scaling” in place of “growing” around the late 1990s to early 2000s, primarily due to the rise of venture-backed startups in Silicon Valley. [...] VCs needed a way to describe businesses that could grow exponentially without adding proportional headcount or expense. So scalability became the holy grail. The term migrated from tech/infrastructure (“can this system scale?”) to startups (“can this business scale?”) and now everyone from lifestyle brands to DTC businesses use it as a universal term for "make business go big." (By the mid-2010s, “scale” was in every pitch deck and founder tweet, even if what they really meant was: “We’re trying to 𝘨𝘳𝘰𝘸, but we want to sound smarter so we're using the term "scale".”) This change in language actually had a HUGE effect on the minds of the people who were operating businesses across the globe. [May 12, 2025, Sarah Levinger, Post of "X" (formerly "Twitter")]
  • Being able to move swiftly, try new things is critical in startups, so there shouldn't be friction upstream, but you need to make sure you have good process to purge things that don't scale with the rest. [2024, Alexandre Mathieu, Post on "Linked in"]
  • Scaling his present bearing with his past. [c. 1608–1609 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedy of Coriolanus”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene iii]:]
  • The kitchen-dining-buffet car scales 49.2 tons. [1962 July, G. Freeman Allen, “The New "Rheingold"”, in Modern Railways, page 25:]
  • Every single drawing in the specification has a warning in its title block which reads, "Do not scale this drawing."