I always find it interesting when a word with different meanings comes, in fact, from different root words. Such is the case with scale.
Though that single English word can mean many different things–fish’s scale, or a scale that builds up on something; to scale a mountain; something that measures weights–none of those meanings actually have anything to do with each other!
The first meaning comes from the Old French escale, meaning “shell,” hence being applied to thin, hard plates on animals.
The Latin word scala means ladder, which is where our “climb” meaning comes from.
And there’s an old Scandinavian word, skal, that means “bowl”–which were used for measuring in the old-timey scale versions that we all recognize but probably don’t have in our house these days. 😉
Now, why we gave them all the same spelling in English…I have no idea, LOL.
Roseanna M. White is a bestselling, Christy Award winning author who has long claimed that words are the air she breathes. When not writing fiction, she’s homeschooling her two kids, editing, designing book covers, and pretending her house will clean itself. Roseanna is the author of a slew of historical novels that span several continents and thousands of years. Spies and war and mayhem always seem to find their way into her books…to offset her real life, which is blessedly ordinary.
How interesting! It does make one wonder about the spellings.