▪ I. † ˈscaling, n. Obs.
[Of obscure origin; ? cf. scavilones.]
Some kind of garment.
| 1577 Eccl. Proc. of Bp. Barnes (Surtees) 17 Great britches gascogne hose, scalings, nor any other like monstrous and vnsemely apparell. |
▪ II. scaling, vbl. n.1
(ˈskeɪlɪŋ)
[f. scale v.1 + -ing1.]
The action of weighing in scales; esp. in Baking and Racing (see scale v.1 1 b, 3 b).
| 1841 Guide to Trade, Baker 42 Engaged in pitching the dough, cutting, scaling off [etc.]. 1864 Daily Tel. 9 June, The large field anticipated [for the Hunt Cup] rendered it necessary that the business of weighing and scaling should be vigorously pushed forward. |
▪ III. scaling, vbl. n.2
(ˈskeɪlɪŋ)
Also 7 skalling.
[f. scale v.2 or n.2 + -ing1.]
1. The action of scale v.2; the removal or peeling off of scales or scale.
| 1591 Percivall Sp. Dict., Escamadura, scaling of fish. 1601 Holland Pliny xxi. xxv. II. 141 The skalling and pilling of the face. 1686 Goad Celest. Bodies i. ix. 30 The crumbling and scaling of Brick and Stone in Frosts that are extreme. 1899 Allbutt's Syst. Med. VIII. 553 As the spot [of psoriasis] enlarges..it often becomes very slightly raised above the surface, and the scaling is more marked. |
b. In technical and manufacturing use.
| 1686 Plot Staffordsh. 335 The plates..keeping each other also from scaleing, or being beaten..away into Cinders or wast. 1728 Rutty Tin-Plates in Phil. Trans. XXXV. 633 The scaling will still be more expeditious, if you dissolve a little Sal-armoniack in the Vinegar. 1825 J. Nicholson Oper. Mech. 725 To prevent the copper from scaling. 1881 Coleman Dental Surg. & Pathol. xvi. 294 In the process of scaling, great care should be exercised to remove all fragmentary portions from between the teeth. |
| attrib. 1840 De Loude Dentistry 98 The dentist..will have a great number of those scaling instruments. 1853–62 Burn Naval & Mil. Dict. ii. 227/1 Scaling oven (for tin), fourneau à décaper. 1875 Knight Dict. Mech. Scaling⁓bar (Steam.), a rod for detaching scale in boilers. |
c. concr. That which scales off; scale, scales.
| 1651 French Distill. i. 4 To these adde the Caput Mortuum, of Vitriall, and Scaling of Iron. 1712 J. Morton Nat. Hist. Northampt. 41 The Kealy Soil is such as is plentifully strewed with..a Stone in very small Masses... They have the Name of Keale, Kale, or Scale, for that they seem to have been Scalings of larger Masses. 1811 Self Instructor 534 Scalings of iron vitrified. 1894 Baring-Gould Deserts S. France I. 143 Thin flakes..of the rock scale off.. and these scalings accumulate all along the foot of the escarpment. |
2. Arrangement of scales.
| 1721 Bradley Philos. Acc. Wks. Nat. 72 To give my Reader the Satisfaction of observing..different Methods of their Scaling [sc. of serpents]. 1898 Proc. Zool. Soc. 17 May 451 On the upper side of the tail..only a few scattered hairs appear, barely hiding the rather coarse ordinary scales, but as the hair thickens the scaling becomes finer. |
▪ IV. scaling, vbl. n.3
(ˈskeɪlɪŋ)
[f. scale v.3]
1. a. Climbing, mounting; escalade.
| a 1513 Fabyan Chron. vii. ccxxx. 262 The castynge of stonys, or scalynge of the wallys, or fyllynge of the dyches. 1598 Barret Theor. Warres ii. i. 20 In the scaling and assaults of batteries or walles. 1655 Fuller Ch. Hist. i. i. §6 He daily walls them with his Providence, against the scaling of the swelling Surges. 1802 C. James Milit. Dict. s.v. Ladder, The success of an attack by scaling is infallible, if they mount the 4 sides at once. 1832 G. Downes Lett. Cont. Countries I. 533 The scaling of the walls by the Duke of Savoy's troops. |
† b. = scaling-ladder. Obs. nonce-use.
| 1582 Stanyhurst æneis ii. (Arb.) 58 They clinge thee scalinges too wals. |
2. In senses of scale v.3 II: Measurement or estimation of quantities; graduation (of charges, etc.); the construction of a scale. Also, measurement or grading of attributes; variation of size or scale; the action of a scaler. Also attrib.
| c 1710 C. Fiennes Diary (1888) 121 The scaleing hall where their stuffs are all measured. 1807 G. Gregory Dict. Arts & Sci. II. 757/3 The plan being laid down, the content of the field may be found by scaling. 1875 Knight Dict. Mech., Scaling,..the process of adjusting sights to the guns on shipboard was formerly so termed. 1877 Michigan Rep. XXXV. 506 The scaling at that mill would appear..to have been very carelessly kept. 1878 N. Amer. Rev. CXXVI. 159 Who threatened repudiation of the whole national debt if there should be resistance to such small scaling. 1899 Westm. Gaz. 11 Nov. 7/1 The scaling down of the fixed dividend from 7 to 6 per cent. 1929 F. N. Freeman in C. Murchison Found. Experim. Psychol. xviii. 721 The purpose of such scaling may be merely to secure items which are equally spaced in difficulty or it may also be to weigh the pupil's performance in terms of the difficulty of the items which he passes. 1938 Rev. Sci. Instruments IX. 221/1 No variations in the scaling factor were found for pulses varying in amplitude by a factor of six. 1949 Nucleonics Feb. 67/2 Several scale-of-2 circuits in tandem provide net scaling factors of 4–8–16–32–64, etc. Other designs, utilizing ‘ring scalers’ or modified scale-of-16 scalers yield decimal scaling ratios (10–100–1000). 1968 Fox & Mayers Computing Methods for Scientists & Engineers v. 89 It is desirable that all rows and columns of [matrix] A, and also of b, should be of reasonable size... This can always be arranged..by appropriate scaling of the rows and columns. 1975 IEEE Trans. Nuclear Sci. XXII. 1580/1 Simple start-stop scaling, count = 8, frequency 53 MHz. 1979 Sci. Amer. July 120/3 One such manifestation of movement into a marginal niche is the scaling down of body size. |
▪ V. scaling, ppl. a.1
(ˈskeɪlɪŋ)
[f. scale v.2 + -ing2.]
That forms or sheds scales.
| 1897 Allbutt's Syst. Med. II. 219 The gradual appearance of copper-coloured scaling papules. 1898 P. Manson Trop. Diseases xxxvii. 583 A ring of scaling epidermis. |
▪ VI. scaling, ppl. a.2
(ˈskeɪlɪŋ)
[f. scale v.3 + -ing2.]
That scales, in the senses of scale v.3 II.
| 1937 Rev. Sci. Instruments VIII. 414/1 The ultimate efficiency..is determined by the resolving power of the first stage of the scaling circuit. 1937 Physical Rev. LI. 1027/1 The ultimate efficiency that can be reached is fixed by the resolving power of the scaling down circuit. 1950 Atomics Sept. 255/1 The simplest scaling circuit is the ‘scale of two’. 1961 G. R. Choppin Exper. Nuclear Chem. iii. 43 The scaling system selects every nth pulse to pass on to the mechanical registers. |