adjective, flat⋅ter, flat⋅test, noun, verb, flat⋅ted, flat⋅ting, adverb | 1. | horizontally level: a flat roof. |
| 2. | level, even, or without unevenness of surface, as land or tabletops. |
| 3. | having a surface that is without marked projections or depressions: a broad, flat face. |
| 4. | lying horizontally and at full length, as a person; prostrate: He was flat on the canvas after the knockdown. |
| 5. | lying wholly on or against something: The banner was flat against the wall. |
| 6. | thrown down, laid low, or level with the ground, as fallen trees or buildings. |
| 7. | having a generally level shape or appearance; not deep or thick: a flat plate. |
| 8. | (of the heel of a shoe) low and broad. |
| 9. | spread out, as an unrolled map or the open hand. |
| 10. | deflated; collapsed: a flat tire. |
| 11. | absolute, downright, or positive; without qualification: a flat denial. |
| 12. | without modification or variation: a flat rate. |
| 13. | Informal. lacking money; broke. |
| 14. | without vitality or animation; lifeless; dull: flat writing. |
| 15. | having lost its flavor, sharpness, or life, as wine or food; stale. |
| 16. | (of a beverage) having lost its effervescence. |
| 17. | without flavor; not spiced: flat cooking. |
| 18. | prosaic, banal, or insipid: a flat style. |
| 19. | pointless, as a remark or joke. |
| 20. | commercially inactive: a flat day in the stock market. |
| 21. | (of a painting) not having the illusion of volume or depth. |
| 22. | (of a photograph or painting) lacking contrast or gradations of tone or color. |
| 23. | (of paint) without gloss; not shiny; mat. |
| 24. | not clear, sharp, or ringing, as sound or a voice. |
| 25. | lacking resonance and variation in pitch; monotonous: a flat delivery of the speech. |
| 26. | Music.
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| 27. | Grammar. derived without change in form, as English to brush from the noun brush and adverbs that do not add -ly to the adjective form as fast, cheap, and slow. |
| 28. | Phonetics. lenis; voiced. |
| 29. | Nautical. (of a sail)
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| 30. | flat a, the a-sound (a) of glad, bat, or act. |
| 31. | something flat. |
| 32. | a shoe, esp. a woman's shoe, with a flat heel or no heel. |
| 33. | a flat surface, side, or part of anything: He struck me with the flat of his hand. |
| 34. | flat or level ground; a flat area: salt flats. |
| 35. | a marsh, shoal, or shallow. |
| 36. | Music.
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| 37. | Theater. a piece of scenery consisting of a wooden frame, usually rectangular, covered with lightweight board or fabric. |
| 38. | a broad, thin book, chiefly for children: a juvenile flat. |
| 39. | Informal. a deflated automobile tire. |
| 40. | (in postal use) a large flat package, as in a manila envelope, for mailing. |
| 41. | Architecture. a flat roof or deck. |
| 42. | Nautical.
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| 43. | Shipbuilding.
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| 44. | an iron or steel bar of rectangular cross section. |
| 45. | Textiles. one of a series of laths covered with card clothing, used in conjunction with the cylinder in carding. |
| 46. | Photography. one or more negatives or positives in position to be reproduced. |
| 47. | Printing. a device for holding a negative or positive flat for reproduction by photoengraving. |
| 48. | Horticulture. a shallow, lidless box or tray used for rooting seeds and cuttings and for growing young plants. |
| 49. | a similar box used for shipping and selling fruits and vegetables. |
| 50. | Football. the area of the field immediately inside of or outside of an offensive end, close behind or at the line of scrimmage. |
| 51. | flats, Informal. flat races between horses. Compare flat race. |
| 52. | to make flat. |
| 53. | Music. to lower (a pitch), esp. one half step. |
| 54. | to become flat. |
| 55. | in a flat position; horizontally; levelly. |
| 56. | in a flat manner; positively; absolutely. |
| 57. | completely; utterly: flat broke. |
| 58. | exactly; precisely: She ran around the track in two minutes flat. |
| 59. | Music. below the true pitch: to sing flat. |
| 60. | Finance. without interest. |
| 61. | flat in, Nautical. to pull the clew of (a fore-and-aft sail) as nearly amidships as possible. Also, flatten in. |
| 62. | fall flat, to fail to produce the desired effect; fail completely: His attempts at humor fell flat. |
| 63. | flat aft, Nautical. trimmed so that fore-and-aft sails present as flat a surface as possible, as in sailing close to the wind. |
| 64. | flat on one's back. back (def. 19). |
| 65. | flat out, Informal.
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flat 1 (flāt) adj. flat·ter, flat·test
v. tr.
To sing or play below the proper pitch. [Middle English, from Old Norse flatr; see plat- in Indo-European roots.] flat'ly adv., flat'ness n. |
Flat
1. A price that is neither rising nor declining.
2. In forex, the condition of being neither long nor short in a particular currency. Also referred to as 'being square'.
3. A bond that is trading without accrued interest.
Investopedia Commentary
1. If a stock over the last month has been trading around $30, it can be thought of as trading flat.
2. If you had no positions in the U.S. dollar or your long and short positions canceled each other out, you would be flat or have a flat book.
3. A bond is trading flat if the buyer of the bond is not responsible for paying the interest that has accrued since the last payment (accrued interest is usually part of the bond purchase price). Bonds that are in default trade flat.
Related Links
Triangles: A Short Study in Continuation Patterns
Getting Started In Forex
Advanced Bond Concepts
See also: Accrued Interest, Bond, Forex, Long, Short
flat
Of, relating to, or being a market maker's inventory position that is neither long nor short; that is, the inventory is zero.
Of, relating to, or being a bond that trades without accrued interest. For example, bonds of a company in bankruptcy proceedings trade flat. A bond trading flat is indicated in bond transaction tables by the symbol f.
flat
1. Lacking any complex internal structure. "That bitty box has only a flat file system, not a hierarchical one." The verb form is flatten. Usually used pejoratively (at least with respect to file systems).
2. Said of a memory architecture like that of the VAX or Motorola 680x0 that is one big linear address space (typically with each possible value of a processor register corresponding to a unique address). This is a Good Thing. The opposite is a "segmented" architecture like that of the Intel 80x86 in which addresses are composed from a base-register/offset pair. Segmented designs are generally considered cretinous.
3. A flat domain is one where all elements except bottom are incomparable (equally well defined). E.g. the integers.
[The Jargon File]
flat
In addition to the idioms beginning with flat, also see caught flat-footed; fall flat; in no time (nothing flat); leave flat.