scalar
adjective
Simple meaning
Of or about a musical scale.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
skaylerSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈskeɪlɚ
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
adjective
Of or relating to a musical scale
“He played some basic scalar patterns on his guitar.”
mathematics
Having magnitude but not direction.
Of or relating to a directionless magnitude (such as mass or speed etc.) that is completely specified by its magnitude
computer science
Consisting of a single value (e.g. integer or string) rather than multiple values (e.g. array).
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B2 · Upper Intermediate (estimated)
- Frequency
- Moderately Common
- Typical Use
- Neutral / general English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Of or relating to a musical scale
Used this way, scalar is a common word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. This is a musical use: it is everyday language among musicians and listeners, and specialised outside that.
“He played some basic scalar patterns on his guitar.”
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Common
- Connotation
- No strong connotation
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Where it naturally appears
- Music/performance
- Arts writing
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
A field of scalars.
A diagonal matrix in which all of the diagonal elements are equal.
A real number (a scalar) that is the product of two vectors.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.