scale to

scale (something) to (something else)

1. To ensure that the size of something complements or is proportional to the size of something else. We'll need to scale these photos to the picture frames I picked out. The architect wants to scale the extension to the rest of the house, but I'd really like for it to be quite a bit bigger than he's suggesting.
2. To adjust or design something to have a particular proportional size. Because the picture is a square, it won't scale to a standard 4x6 print unless we crop part of it out. The artist scaled the entire model city to just 1/1000ths of the real New York City, while still maintaining an astounding level of detail and accuracy.
See also: scale
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

scale something to something

to design or adjust the size of one thing to match or complement the size of another thing. The architect sought to scale the office building to the buildings surrounding it. The playhouse will have to be scaled to the main house.
See also: scale
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs.
See also:
  • scale (something) to (something else)
  • mushroom into
  • mushroom into (something)
  • out of proportion
  • whittle
  • whittle (someone or something) down to size
  • whittle down to size
  • of a size
  • all of a size
  • yea big
References in periodicals archive
The Washington Courthouse Cox paving plant required a rugged truck scale to perform all of these important tasks.
B-TEK Scales Fabricates Solution for Brechbuhler Scales Distributor, Providing a Digital Scale Solution for Cox Paving
This is useful for resetting the scale to zero after placing an empty bowl on it.
October 2007: Ingredients & Implements: Pickles & Kitchen Scales
Incorporating 'Lift-and Clean', allows the scale to be effortlessly raised from floor level to facilitate inspection and cleaning
Nova Weigh introduces updated 'lift-and-clean' range of scales for cGMP applications
What adopters should look to avoid is a product which will simply create multiple "islands" of virtualization because it cannot scale to a reasonable size.
Storage virtualization--questions for potential adopters Part 3 of 3
LTS Scale Corporation has added a legal-for-trade, NTEP Approved Pallet Truck Scale to their Precision Mobile Scale product line.
Pallet Truck Scale
Scientists use a Richter scale to describe the amount of energy released during an earthquake.
Get ready to rumble. (Math/Chart-Reading Skills)
The smallest bank tower offers the largest scale to the StJames's Street.
Obituary. (View)
The difficulty for ferrous dealers is that buying from individuals and "peddlers" can entail using a larger scale to measure relatively small amounts of scrap.
Canadians weigh new standards. (Scrap Industry News)
But the scales ranged in price from a $5.99 Metro scale to a $49.99 Health-O-Meter digital lithium-powered scale.
SCALES AND BODY-FAT MONITORS ARE GETTING HEAVY PROMOTIONS
An examination of the top two boxes for the six scales involving the college ratings indicated the following: the total number of subjects selecting these boxes ranged from a low of 10 for the IMPROVE scale to a high of 64 for the RECOMMEND scale.
Overall evaluation rating scales: an assessment
Fewer than half of the players in the variable-annuity market have the necessary manufacturing or distribution scale to produce reasonable returns in the long run.
SCALING ANNUTITIES
A recent innovation in the visual output for image-guided surgery is the use of a color scale to represent the CT image (figure 1).
Rainbow scale in computer-aided sinus surgery
If the fine-scale components interact with one another so that feed-back loops develop, then a simple aggregation can not be used to scale to a coarser resolution (Harding et al.).
Scaling-Up: From Cell to Landscape
For families struggling with MS, the invention of a scale to measure the progress of MS problems may not seem an advance in the fight against this disease.
1997 Dystel Prize to Dr. John F. Kurtzke
Reagles and Crystal (1975) administered the Client Satisfaction Scale to 90 former clients who had received services from one district office of Wisconsin DVR and whose casefiels were closed as rehabilitated.
Assessing Client Satisfaction in Vocational Rehabilitation Program Evaluation: A Review of Instrumentation