English · Idiom Candidate

tip the scales

Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.

Both English Tiếng Việt

Meaning · English

to be the factor that decides something

Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt

là yếu tố quyết định

Machine-translated — suggest a fix

Literally: to tip a balance scale

Where it’s used: Used Widespread English

Examples

Mr Bates thinks the disappearance of November's protest vote could tip the scales his way.

Alternatively, Ho may simply have been waiting for something to turn up, something that would tip the scales one way or the other in the situation that was neither peace nor war.

British National Corpus sentence via the MAGPIE corpus (CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-30)

Sources & notes

Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-31; pending editor spot-check.

Common questions

What does “tip the scales” mean?

to be the factor that decides something Literally: to tip a balance scale

Is “tip the scales” formal or informal?

No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.

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