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Scale vs Feather - What's the difference?

scale | feather |

As nouns the difference between scale and feather

is that scale is (obsolete) a ladder; a series of steps; a means of ascending or scale can be part of an overlapping arrangement of many small, flat and hard pieces of keratin covering the skin of an animal, particularly a fish or reptile or scale can be a device to measure mass or weight while feather is a branching, hair-like structure that grows on the bodies of birds, used for flight, swimming, protection and display.

As verbs the difference between scale and feather

is that scale is to change the size of something whilst maintaining proportion; especially to change a process in order to produce much larger amounts of the final product or scale can be to remove the scales of while feather is to cover or furnish with feathers.

scale

English

(wikipedia scale) {, style="float: right; clear:right;" , , }

Etymology 1

From (etyl) ; see scan, ascend, descend, etc.

Noun

(en noun)
  • (obsolete) A ladder; a series of steps; a means of ascending.
  • An ordered numerical sequence used for measurement.
    • Please rate your experience on a scale from 1 to 10.
  • Size; scope.
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2012-01
    • , author=Robert L. Dorit , title=Rereading Darwin , volume=100, issue=1, page=23 , magazine= citation , passage=We live our lives in three dimensions for our threescore and ten allotted years. Yet every branch of contemporary science, from statistics to cosmology, alludes to processes that operate on scales outside of human experience: the millisecond and the nanometer, the eon and the light-year.}}
    The Holocaust was insanity on an enormous scale .
    There are some who question the scale of our ambitions.
  • The ratio of depicted distance to actual distance.
    • This map uses a scale of 1:10.
  • A line or bar associated with a drawing, used to indicate measurement when the image has been magnified or reduced
  • *
    • Even though precision can be carried to an extreme, the scales which now are drawn in (and usually connected to an appropriate figure by an arrow) will allow derivation of meaningful measurements.
  • A means of assigning a magnitude.
    • The magnitude of an earthquake is measured on the open-ended Richter scale .
  • (music) A series of notes spanning an octave, tritave, or pseudo-octave, used to make melodies.
  • A mathematical base for a numeral system.
    • the decimal scale'''; the binary '''scale
  • Gradation; succession of ascending and descending steps and degrees; progressive series; scheme of comparative rank or order.
  • * Milton
    • There is a certain scale of duties which for want of studying in right order, all the world is in confusion.
  • * {{quote-news, year=2012
    • , date=May 13 , author=Phil McNulty , title=Man City 3-2 QPR , work=BBC Sport citation , page= , passage=City's players and supporters travelled from one end of the emotional scale to the other in those vital seconds, providing a truly remarkable piece of football theatre and the most dramatic conclusion to a season in Premier League history.}}
    Derived terms
    * Celsius scale * Fahrenheit scale * Kelvin scale * major scale * microscale * milliscale * minor scale * modal scale * scale invariance * scale model * Richter scale * to scale * wage scale * widescale
    Hyponyms
    * (music) tonic, supertonic, mediant, subdominant, dominant, submediant, leading note, octave interval * (geography) cartographic ratio, resolution, grain, support, focus, extent, range, size
    See also
    * degree * ordinal variable

    Verb

    (scal)
  • To change the size of something whilst maintaining proportion; especially to change a process in order to produce much larger amounts of the final product.
    • We should scale that up by a factor of 10.
  • To climb to the top of.
    • Hilary and Norgay were the first known to have scaled Everest.
  • * 1918 , (Edgar Rice Burroughs), Chapter IX
    • 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.
  • (computing) To tolerate significant increases in throughput or other potentially limiting factors.
    • That architecture won't scale to real-world environments.
  • To weigh, measure or grade according to a scale or system.
  • * Shakespeare
    • Scaling his present bearing with his past.
    Related terms
    * scale back * scale down * scale up * scaling ladder

    Etymology 2

    From (etyl) scale, from (etyl) escale, from (etyl) or another (etyl) source skala /, (etyl) scaglia.

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • Part of an overlapping arrangement of many small, flat and hard pieces of keratin covering the skin of an animal, particularly a fish or reptile.
  • * Milton
    • Fish that, with their fins and shining scales , / Glide under the green wave.
  • A small piece of pigmented chitin, many of which coat the wings of a butterfly or moth to give them their color.
  • A flake of skin of an animal afflicted with dermatitis.
  • A pine nut of a pinecone.
  • The flaky material sloughed off heated metal.
  • Scale mail (as opposed to chain mail).
  • Limescale
  • A scale insect
  • The thin metallic side plate of the handle of a pocketknife.
    • Derived terms
    * antiscalant

    Verb

    (scal)
  • To remove the scales of.
    • Please scale that fish for dinner.
  • To become scaly; to produce or develop scales.
    • The dry weather is making my skin scale .
  • To strip or clear of scale; to descale.
    • to scale the inside of a boiler
  • To take off in thin layers or scales, as tartar from the teeth; to pare off, as a surface.
  • * T. Burnet
    • if all the mountains were scaled , and the earth made even
  • To separate and come off in thin layers or laminae.
    • Some sandstone scales by exposure.
  • * Francis Bacon
    • Those that cast their shell are the lobster and crab; the old skins are found, but the old shells never; so it is likely that they scale off.
  • (UK, Scotland, dialect) To scatter; to spread.
  • To clean, as the inside of a cannon, by the explosion of a small quantity of powder.
    • (Totten)

    Etymology 3

    From (etyl) . Cognate with , as in Etymology 2.

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A device to measure mass or weight.
    • After the long, lazy winter I was afraid to get on the scale .
  • Either of the pans, trays, or dishes of a balance or scales.
    • Usage notes
    * The noun is often used in the plural to denote a single device (originally a pair of scales had two pans).

    External links

    (scale up) * *

    Anagrams

    * English terms with multiple etymologies ----

    feather

    English

    (wikipedia feather)

    Alternative forms

    * fether

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A branching, hair-like structure that grows on the bodies of birds, used for flight, swimming, protection and display.
  • * 1873 , W. K. Brooks, "A Feather", Popular Science Monthly , volume IV, page 687
    • Notice, too, that the shaft is not straight, but bent so that the upper surface of the feather is convex, and the lower concave.
  • * 1914 , , The Beasts of Tarzan , chapter V
    • Big fellows they were, all of them, their barbaric headdresses and grotesquely painted faces, together with their many metal ornaments and gorgeously coloured feathers , adding to their wild, fierce appearance.
  • * 2000 , C. J. Puotinen, The Encyclopedia of Natural Pet Care? , page 362
    • Nesting birds pluck some of their own feathers' to line the nest, but ' feather plucking in pet birds is entirely different.
  • Long hair on the lower legs of a dog or horse, especially a draft horse, notably the Clydesdale breed. Narrowly only the rear hair.
  • One of the fins or wings on the shaft of an arrow.
  • A longitudinal strip projecting from an object to strengthen it, or to enter a channel in another object and thereby prevent displacement sideways but permit motion lengthwise; a spline.
  • Kind; nature; species (from the proverbial phrase "birds of a feather").
  • * Shakespeare
    • I am not of that feather to shake off / My friend when he must need me.
  • One of the two shims of the three-piece stone-splitting tool known as (plug and feather) or plug and feathers; the feathers are placed in a borehole and then a wedge is driven between them, causing the stone to split.
    • (Knight)
  • The angular adjustment of an oar or paddle-wheel float, with reference to a horizontal axis, as it leaves or enters the water.

    • Synonyms

    * (horse hair) feathers, feathering, horsefeathers

    Antonyms

    * (horse hair at rear of lower legs) spats

    Derived terms

    {{der3, afterfeather , birds of a feather , contour feather , featherback , featherbed , featherbedding , featherbrain , feather-brained , featherdown , feather duster , featherhead , featherily , featheriness , feathering float , feathering screw , feathering strip , feathering wheel , feather in one's cap , feather in one's hat , featherless , featherlight , featherlike , feather pen , feathertail , featherweight , featherwood , feather wool , featherwork , feathery , fine feathers make fine birds , flight feather , horsefeathers , light as a feather}}

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To cover or furnish with feathers.
  • * L'Estrange
    • An eagle had the ill hap to be struck with an arrow feathered from her own wing.
  • To arrange in the manner or appearance of feathers.
    • The stylist feathered my hair.
  • (ambitransitive, rowing) To rotate the oars while they are out of the water to reduce wind resistance.
  • (aeronautics) To streamline the blades of an aircraft's propeller by rotating them perpendicular to the axis of the propeller when the engine is shut down so that the propeller doesn't windmill as the aircraft flies.
    • After striking the bird, the pilot feathered the left, damaged engine's propeller.
  • (carpentry, engineering) To finely shave or bevel an edge.
  • (computer graphics) To intergrade or blend the pixels of an image with those of a background or neighboring image.
  • To adorn, as with feathers; to fringe.
  • * Sir Walter Scott
    • A few birches and oaks still feathered the narrow ravines.
  • To render light as a feather; to give wings to.
  • * Loveday
    • The Polonian story perhaps may feather some tedious hours.
  • To enrich; to exalt; to benefit.
  • * Francis Bacon
    • They stuck not to say that the king cared not to plume his nobility and people to feather himself.
    (Dryden)
  • To tread, as a cock.
    • (Dryden)

    Derived terms

    * feathered * feather one's nest * feather one's own nest * tar and feather

    References

    * Horse Glossary * Horses Glossary * Cowboy Dictionary] – [http://www.cowboyway.com/Dictionary/Letter-F.htm Cowboy F: Feather

    Anagrams

    * *