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Entry 28 senses · 5 variants Webster, 1913

Flat

/(flăt)/ · IPA /flæt/
01 a. Having an even and horizontal surface, or nearly so, without prominences or depressions; level without inclination; plane.
  1. 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.” — Milton.
  2. 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!” — Milton.
    “I feel . . . my hopes all flat.” — Milton.
  3. 3.
    Wanting relief; destitute of variety; without points of prominence and striking interest.(Fine Arts)
    “A large part of the work is, to me, very flat.” — Coleridge.
  4. 4.
    Tasteless; stale; vapid; insipid; dead; as, fruit or drink flat to the taste.
  5. 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.” — Shak.
  6. 6.
    Lacking liveliness of commercial exchange and dealings; depressed; dull; as, the market is flat.
  7. 7.
    Clear; unmistakable; peremptory; absolute; positive; downright.
    “Flat burglary as ever was committed.” — Shak.
    “A great tobacco taker too, -- that's flat.” — Marston.
  8. 8.
    Below the true pitch; hence, as applied to intervals, minor, or lower by a half step; as, a flat seventh; A flat.(Mus.)
  9. 9.
    Sonant; vocal; -- applied to any one of the sonant or vocal consonants, as distinguished from a nonsonant (or sharp) consonant.(Phonetics)
  10. 10.
    Having a head at a very obtuse angle to the shaft; -- said of a club.(Golf)
  11. 11.
    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 AS. adverbs in -ë, the loss of this ending having made them like the adjectives. Some having forms in ly, such as exceeding, wonderful, true, are now archaic.(Gram.)
  12. 12.
    Flattening at the ends; -- said of certain fruits.(Hort.)
    “Of all who fell by saber or by shot, Not one fell half so flat as Walter Scott.” — Lord Erskine.
Syn. flat-out.
02 adv. In a flat manner; directly; flatly.
  1. 1.
    In a flat manner; directly; flatly.
    “Sin is flat opposite to the Almighty.” — Herbert.
  2. 2.
    Without allowance for accrued interest.(Stock Exchange) [Broker's Cant]
03 n. A level surface, without elevation, relief, or prominences; an extended plain; specifically, in the United States, a level tract along the …
  1. 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.” — Bacon.
  2. 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.” — Shak.
  3. 3.
    Something broad and flat in form(Railroad Mach.)
  4. 4.
    The flat part, or side, of anything; as, the broad side of a blade, as distinguished from its edge.
  5. 5.
    A floor, loft, or story in a building;(Arch.)
  6. 6.
    A horizontal vein or ore deposit auxiliary to a main vein; also, any horizontal portion of a vein not elsewhere horizontal.(Mining)
  7. 7.
    A dull fellow; a simpleton; a numskull.[Colloq.]
    “Or if you can not make a speech, Because you are a flat.” — Holmes.
  8. 8.
    A character [♭] before a note, indicating a tone which is a half step or semitone lower.(Mus.)
  9. 9.
    A homaloid space or extension.(Geom.)
04 v. t. To make flat; to flatten; to level.
imp. & p. p. Flatted; p. pr. & vb. n. Flatting
  1. 1.
    To make flat; to flatten; to level.
  2. 2.
    To render dull, insipid, or spiritless; to depress.
    “Passions are allayed, appetites are flatted.” — Barrow.
  3. 3.
    To depress in tone, as a musical note; especially, to lower in pitch by half a tone.
05 v. i. To become flat, or flattened; to sink or fall to an even surface.
  1. 1.
    To become flat, or flattened; to sink or fall to an even surface.
  2. 2.
    To fall form the pitch.(Mus.)
Phrases & compounds
To flat out — to fail from a promising beginning; to make a bad ending; to disappoint expectations.