scale v.2
1. to leave surreptitiously or speedily; esp. as scale off, do a scale.
| [ | ![[UK]](/static/img/flags/uk.png "United Kingdom") | Annals of Sporting 1 Mar. 200: The crowd soon dispersed with all the order and decorum of a kirk scaling]. |
![[Aus]](/static/img/flags/aus.png "Australia") | Sun. Times (Perth) 4 Sept. 4/7: So I tell the old Joe Rail / [...] / And I bluff ’em off and scale / When I’ve tipped a stiffened ‘orse. | |
| Sydney Sportsman (Surry Hills, NSW) 19 Oct. 8/6: ‘You can’t get blobd out of a stone,’ said an ‘outer’ bookmaker at ‘Kenso,’ when doing a ‘scale’ over the last race. | |
| Aussie (France) XII Mar. back cover: How to Scale Parades and Fatigues. | |
| Advocate (Burnie, Tas.) 5 June 7/2: He’s going to scale sport to-morrow and pinch off to the flicks. | |
![[NZ]](/static/img/flags/nz.png "New Zealand") | Dict. of Kiwi Sl. 96/2: scale disappear quickly or furtively. | |
| Lex. of Cadet Lang. 315: scale 1. (highly contumelious) to report sick, for specious reasons, in order to avoid activities such as parade, drill, or physical training. |
2. to steal, to defraud; thus scale a train/tram, to board and ride without paying.
| Materials for a Dict. of Aus. Sl. [unpub. ms.] 136: SCALE: thieves and sporting to defraud, to obtain goods by trick, to evade payment. | |
| Sun. Times (Perth) 6 May 10/2: ‘Scaling the sports’ who hazard themselves in George’s locomotive is a regular industry among the spieling gentry. | |
| Truth (Melbourne) 3 Jan. 5/4: [headline] Alleged Roguery at Richmond Racecourse. / She Accuses Her Turf Commission Agent of ‘Scaling’. | |
 | ‘Buckled’ in Bulletin 29 May 49/2: ‘You needn’t be frightened of getting scaled. It’s that swell gent’ . | |
| I Travelled a Lonely Land (1957) 238/2: scale – to cheat. scale a rattler to go on board a train without paying. | |
![[SA]](/static/img/flags/sa.png "South Africa") | Crime in S. Afr. 104: ‘We “scaled jam-jars” (stole cars)’ [...] His friends used to invite him to ‘scale a jam’. | |
| Holy Smoke 56: It’s no good whipping the cat if a man’s such a dill as to come the double on anyone – like tryin’ to scale the trammie for your fare. | |
| ‘Outers’ Born in the RSA (1997) 61: I told you that fuckin’ Giovanni scaled my knife. | |
| Dict. of Kiwi Sl. 96/2: scale [...] to steal or rob; originally from scaling a ride on trams or trains, or taking a free ride. | |
| CyberBraai Lex. at www.matriots.com 🌐 SCALE: To scale something is to steal it. | |
| Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. [as cit. 1988]. | |
| Acid Alex 50: Stealing stuff was called scaling or slukking goeters. |
In derivatives
1. a fraud, anyone who betrays a financial trust.
| W.A. Sun. Times (Perth) 1 Dec. 1/1: The hoary-headed sleeping-car conductor has successfully liquidated the Subiaco dovecote [and] high officials refuse to reinstate the shameless scaler [...] the opportunities for tips and Tottie are not now so frequent as of yore. | |
| Honk! ix. 5: If you wear a sling, people put their arms around you and weep, but if you have a couple of bullets in your liver and nothing to show them you must be a scaler [AND]. | |
| Dict. of Aus. Words And Terms 🌐 SCALER — A fraud. | |
| Dict. of Kiwi Sl. 96/2: scaler robber, especially from his mates; c.1920. | |
| Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. [as cit. 1988]. |
2. an absconder.
| W.A. Sun. Times (Perth) 8 Dec. 1/1: Hearing that another picnic party had secured the ground, they left for Perth owing for their diner [but] though the ‘scalers’ came from a big firm, the bilked bung intends to have their scalps. |
3. one who rides illegally for free on public transport.
| Bulletin (Sydney) 25 Aug. 11/1: Johnson has four different kinds of swindlers to contend with on his Sydney tramways – tickers, short riders, panel riders and gazers. [...] And all these four [...] are officially known in the bright lexicon of Johnson as scalers. | |
| Popular Dict. Aus. Sl. | |
| I Travelled a Lonely Land 386: Scale, to cheat. Scale a rattler, to go on board a train without paying. Scaler, a person who does those things . | |
| George and Widda-Woman 50: The Tramway is very down on scalers, and brings a court action whenever possible [...] against people who try to swindle His Majesty’s government [AND]. |
the act of riding for free on public transport.
| DSUE (8th edn) 1016/1: Aus. since ca. 1920. |