The most common and most likely answer to this crossword clue is the 10 letter word FAHRENHEIT
I've seen this crossword clue in The Guardian
F
A
H
R
E
N
H
E
I
T
More clues leading to the result FAHRENHEIT
- Physicist in the RAF worried about explosive
- German physicist to succeed bottling hydrogen in the works
- Overture from Fauré playing, then I hear scale
- In the RAF, he laboured for a degree
- Physicist in after explosive stores hydrogen and helium separately
- Lord of Farce, gutted
- Way of measuring warmth in unusually fine hearth
- It’s hot in a fire, then — possibly as indicated by this?
- Frantically fan the heir of a German physicist
- Scale getting hot in a fire then exploded
Buddy explains!
The straight part
We know that "scale" is the straight/definition part of the clue. The straight part is often a synonym or definition, in this case scale = fahrenheit.The cryptic/wordplay part
In cryptic crossword there's often an wordplay/cryptic part as well.This part involves a more complex hint, such as an anagram, homophone, hidden word, etc.
Sadly, We don't have an explanation for this specific crossword clue yet.