I've forgotten the word for what I want to do

I’ve been away for three years because of various moves and not having access to a desktop, and I’m trying to relearn some things, but I seem to have forgotten both the shortcut and the word for what I’m trying to do.

There’s a function where you can select a vertice, and then move, scale etc. and the vertices nearby will be effected as well, and how much they’re effected depends upon how close they are to the selected vertice. I remember that scaling the area of effect was done with the scroll wheel. What is this called and what’s the shortcut for it?

I think you’re looking for Proportional Edit. (Shortcut is ‘O’)