Flat
Flat (flat) , adjective
[Akin to Icelandic flatr, Swedish flat, Danish flad, Old High German flaz, and Anglo-Saxon flet floor, German flotz stratum, layer.]
1.
Having an even and horizontal surface, or nearly so, without prominences or depressions; level without inclination; plane.
Though sun and moon
Were in the flat sea sunk.
2.
Lying at full length, or spread out, upon the ground; level with the ground or earth; prostrate; as, to lie flat on the ground; hence, fallen; laid low; ruined; destroyed.
What ruins kingdoms, and lays cities flat!
I feel... my hopes all flat.
3.
(Fine Arts) Wanting relief; destitute of variety; without points of prominence and striking interest.
A large part of the work is, to me, very flat.
4.
Tasteless; stale; vapid; insipid; dead; as, fruit or drink flat to the taste.
5.
Unanimated; dull; uninteresting; without point or spirit; monotonous; as, a flat speech or composition.
How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable
Seem to me all the uses of this world.
6.
Lacking liveliness of commercial exchange and dealings; depressed; dull; as, the market is flat.
7.
Clear; unmistakable; peremptory; absolute; positive; downright.
Flat burglary as ever was committed.
A great tobacco taker too, -- that's flat.
8.
(a) (Music) Below the true pitch; hence, as applied to intervals, minor, or lower by a half step; as, a flat seventh; A flat.
(b)
(Music) Not sharp or shrill; not acute; as, a flat sound.
9.
(Phonetics) Sonant; vocal; -- applied to any one of the sonant or vocal consonants, as distinguished from a nonsonant (or sharp) consonant.
10.
(Golf) Having a head at a very obtuse angle to the shaft; -- said of a club.
11.
(Grammar) Not having an inflectional ending or sign, as a noun used as an adjective, or an adjective as an adverb, without the addition of a formative suffix, or an infinitive without the sign to. Many flat adverbs, as in run fast, buy cheap, are from Anglo-Saxon adverbs in -e, the loss of this ending having made them like the adjectives. Some having forms in ly, such as exceeding, wonderful, true, are now archaic.
12.
(Horticulture) Flattening at the ends; -- said of certain fruits.
Of all who fell by saber or by shot,
Not one fell half so flat as Walter Scott.
Some flat hoisting ropes, as for mining shafts, are made by sewing together a number of ropes, making a wide, flat band
Flat , adverb
1.
In a flat manner; directly; flatly.
Sin is flat opposite to the Almighty.
2.
(Stock Exchange) Without allowance for accrued interest. [Broker's Cant]
Flat , noun
1.
A level surface, without elevation, relief, or prominences; an extended plain; specifically, in the United States, a level tract along the along the banks of a river; as, the Mohawk Flats.
Envy is as the sunbeams that beat hotter upon a bank, or steep rising ground, than upon a flat.
2.
A level tract lying at little depth below the surface of water, or alternately covered and left bare by the tide; a shoal; a shallow; a strand.
Half my power, this night
Passing these flats, are taken by the tide.
3.
(Railroad Machinery) Something broad and flat in form
(a)
(Railroad Machinery) A flat-bottomed boat, without keel, and of small draught.
(b)
(Railroad Machinery) A straw hat, broad-brimmed and low-crowned.
(c)
(Railroad Machinery) A car without a roof, the body of which is a platform without sides; a platform car.
(d)
(Railroad Machinery) A platform on wheel, upon which emblematic designs, etc., are carried in processions.
4.
The flat part, or side, of anything; as, the broad side of a blade, as distinguished from its edge.
5.
(Architecture) A floor, loft, or story in a building;
(Architecture) a floor of a house, which forms a complete residence in itself; an apartment taking up a whole floor. In this latter sense, the usage is more common in British English.
6.
(Mining) A horizontal vein or ore deposit auxiliary to a main vein; also, any horizontal portion of a vein not elsewhere horizontal. — Raymond
7.
A dull fellow; a simpleton; a numskull. [Colloquial]
Or if you can not make a speech,
Because you are a flat.
8.
(Music) A character [♭] before a note, indicating a tone which is a half step or semitone lower.
9.
(Geometry) A homaloid space or extension.
Flat , transitive verb
1.
To make flat; to flatten; to level.
2.
To render dull, insipid, or spiritless; to depress.
Passions are allayed, appetites are flatted.
3.
To depress in tone, as a musical note; especially, to lower in pitch by half a tone.
Flat , intransitive verb
1.
To become flat, or flattened; to sink or fall to an even surface. — Sir W. Temple
2.
(Music) To fall form the pitch.
Collocations (1)
To flat out , to fail from a promising beginning; to make a bad ending; to disappoint expectations. [Colloquial]