Scalability
Etymology
Built on "scale," from Latin "scala" (a ladder or flight of steps), from "scandere" (to climb). To scale something is to move it up the ladder of size. The abstract noun took off in computing and startup culture, where growing tenfold without collapsing is the whole game.
noun · /skay-luh-BIL-ih-tee/
The ability of a system or business to handle much more work or growth without breaking or costing proportionally more.
What it names
It captures whether something can grow gracefully, separating ventures that multiply from ones that merely get busier.
Example
The bakery made great cakes, but with no scalability it could never serve more than one neighborhood.
Related idea
Scalability is about growing capacity cheaply; throughput is how much you push through right now. A high-throughput system can still lack scalability if doubling output means doubling every cost.