turn the scale
turn the scale verb: to decide or determine a balanced situation.
Verb
turn the scale (third-person singular simple present turns the scale, present participle turning the scale, simple past and past participle turned the scale)
- To decide or determine a balanced situation.
- Perhaps Charles Strickland's power and originality would scarcely have sufficed to turn the scale if the remarkable mythopoeic faculty of mankind had not brushed aside with impatience a story which disappointed all its craving for the extraordinary.1919, W[illiam] Somerset Maugham, “chapter 1”, in The Moon and Sixpence, [New York, N.Y.]: Grosset & Dunlap Publishers […], →OCLC
- Synonyms:
- tip the scales
Synonyms of turn the scale
Forms of turn the scale
| third-person singular present | turns the scale |
|---|---|
| present participle | turning the scale |
| past participle | turned the scale |
| past | turned the scale |
Words formed from turn the scale
- turn the scales at
Questions about turn the scale
- What does turn the scale mean?
- Turn the scale means to decide or determine a balanced situation.
- What part of speech is turn the scale?
- Turn the scale is a verb.
- What is the past tense of turn the scale?
- The past tense of turn the scale is turned the scale.
Words near turn the scale in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: turn the scale (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-turn the scale.ogg.
Cite this entry: “turn the scale.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/turn_the_scale. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.