flat definition | Dictionary.com

flat

1 [flat]

adjective, flat⋅ter, flat⋅test, noun, verb, flat⋅ted, flat⋅ting, adverb

–adjective

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.

a.	(of a tone) lowered a half step in pitch: B flat.

b.	below an intended pitch, as a note; too low (opposed to sharp ).

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)

a.	cut with little or no fullness.

b.	trimmed as nearly fore-and-aft as possible, for sailing to windward.

30.	flat a, the a-sound (a) of glad, bat, or act.

–noun

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.

a.	(in musical notation) the character ♭, which when attached to a note or to a staff degree lowers its significance one chromatic half step.

b.	a tone one chromatic half step below another: The flat of B is B flat.

c.	(on keyboard instruments, with reference to any given note) the key next below or to the left.

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.

a.	Also called platform. a partial deck between two full decks.

b.	a low, flat barge or lighter.

43.

Shipbuilding.

a.	a broad, flat piece of iron or steel for overlapping and joining two plates at their edges.

b.	a straight timber in a frame or other assembly of generally curved timbers.

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.

–verb (used with object)

52.	to make flat.

53.	Music. to lower (a pitch), esp. one half step.

–verb (used without object)

54.	to become flat.

–adverb

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.

—Verb phrase

61.	flat in, Nautical. to pull the clew of (a fore-and-aft sail) as nearly amidships as possible. Also, flatten in.

—Idioms

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.

a.	without hesitation; directly or openly: He told us flat out he'd been a double agent.

b.	at full speed or with maximum effort.

Origin:
1275–1325; ME < ON flatr, akin to OE flet (see flat ² ), Gk platýs (see platy-, plate ¹

Related forms:

flatly, adverb

flatness, noun

Synonyms:
1. plane. See level. 4. low, prone. 11. outright, peremptory, categorical. 14. boring, spiritless, prosaic. 17. vapid, unsavory.

Antonyms:
1, 4. upright, vertical. 14. spirited. 17. savory.

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flat

2 [flat]

–noun

Chiefly British. an apartment or suite of rooms on one floor forming a residence.

Origin:
1795–1805; var. of obs. flet, OE: floor, house, hall; akin to flat ¹

Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.
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Link To flat

flat¹ (flāt)

adj. flat·ter, flat·test

Having a horizontal surface without a slope, tilt, or curvature.
Having a smooth, even, level surface: a skirt sewed with fine flat seams.
Having a relatively broad surface in relation to thickness or depth: a flat board. See Synonyms at level.
Stretched out or lying at full length along the ground; prone.
Free of qualification; absolute: a flat refusal.
Fixed; unvarying: a flat rate.
Lacking interest or excitement; dull: a flat scenario.
1. Lacking in flavor: a flat stew that needs salt.
2. Having lost effervescence or sparkle: flat beer.
3. Deflated. Used of a tire.
4. Electrically discharged. Used of a storage battery.
5. Being below the correct pitch.
6. Being one half step lower than the corresponding natural key: the key of B flat.
1. Deflated. Used of a tire.
2. Electrically discharged. Used of a storage battery.
3. Being below the correct pitch.
4. Being one half step lower than the corresponding natural key: the key of B flat.
Of or relating to a horizontal line that displays no ups or downs and signifies the absence of physiological activity: A flat electroencephalogram indicates a loss of brain function.
Commercially inactive; sluggish: flat sales for the month.
Unmodulated; monotonous: a flat voice.
Lacking variety in tint or shading; uniform: "The sky was bright but flat, the color of oyster shells" (Anne Tyler).
Not glossy; mat: flat paint.
Music
1. Being below the correct pitch.
2. Being one half step lower than the corresponding natural key: the key of B flat.
Designating the vowel a as pronounced in bad or cat.
Nautical Taut. Used of a sail.

adv.

1. Level with the ground; horizontally.
2. On or up against a flat surface; at full length.
3. Directly; completely: went flat against the rules; flat broke.
4. Exactly; precisely: arrived in six minutes flat.
So as to be flat.
1. Directly; completely: went flat against the rules; flat broke.
2. Exactly; precisely: arrived in six minutes flat.
Music Below the intended pitch.
Business Without interest charge.

A flat surface or part.
A stretch of level ground. Often used in the plural: salt flats.
A shallow frame or box for seeds or seedlings.
A movable section of stage scenery, usually consisting of a wooden frame and a decorated panel of wood or cloth.
A flatcar.
A deflated tire.
A shoe with a flat heel.
A large flat piece of mail.
A horse that competes in a flat race. Also called runner.
Music
1. A sign (♭) used to indicate that a note is to be lowered by a half step.
2. A note that is lowered a half step.
Football The area of the field to either side of an offensive formation.

v. flat·ted, flat·ting, flats

v. tr.

To make flat; flatten.
Music To lower (a note) a semitone.

v. intr. Music
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.

flat² (flāt)

An apartment on one floor of a building.
Archaic A story in a house.

[Alteration of Scots flet, inner part of a house, from Middle English, from Old English, floor, dwelling; see plat- in Indo-European roots.]

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2009 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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Flat

Flat\, a. [Compar. Flatter; superl. Flattest.] [Akin to Icel. flatr, Sw. flat, Dan. flad, OHG. flaz, and AS. flet floor, G. fl["o]tz 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. --Milton.

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. (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. --Coleridge.

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. --Shak.

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. --Shak.

A great tobacco taker too, -- that's flat. --Marston.

8. (Mus.) (a) Below the true pitch; hence, as applied to intervals, minor, or lower by a half step; as, a flat seventh; A flat. (b) 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.

Flat arch. (Arch.) See under Arch, n., 2. (b).

Flat cap, cap paper, not folded. See under Paper.

Flat chasing, in fine art metal working, a mode of ornamenting silverware, etc., producing figures by dots and lines made with a punching tool. --Knight.

Flat chisel, a sculptor's chisel for smoothing.

Flat file, a file wider than its thickness, and of rectangular section. See File.

Flat nail, a small, sharp-pointed, wrought nail, with a flat, thin head, larger than a tack. --Knight.

Flat paper, paper which has not been folded.

Flat rail, a railroad rail consisting of a simple flat bar spiked to a longitudinal sleeper.

Flat rods (Mining), horizontal or inclined connecting rods, for transmitting motion to pump rods at a distance. --Raymond.

Flat rope, a rope made by plaiting instead of twisting; gasket; sennit.

Note: Some flat hoisting ropes, as for mining shafts, are made by sewing together a number of ropes, making a wide, flat band. --Knight.

Flat space. (Geom.) See Euclidian space.

Flat stitch, the process of wood engraving. [Obs.] -- Flat tint (Painting), a coat of water color of one uniform shade.

To fall flat (Fig.), to produce no effect; to fail in the intended effect; as, his speech fell flat.

Of all who fell by saber or by shot, Not one fell half so flat as Walter Scott. --Lord Erskine.

Flat

Flat\, adv. 1. In a flat manner; directly; flatly.

Sin is flat opposite to the Almighty. --Herbert.

2. (Stock Exchange) Without allowance for accrued interest. [Broker's Cant]

Flat

Flat\, n. 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. 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. Something broad and flat in form; as: (a) A flat-bottomed boat, without keel, and of small draught. (b) A straw hat, broad-brimmed and low-crowned. (c) (Railroad Mach.) A car without a roof, the body of which is a platform without sides; a platform car. (d) 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. (Arch.) A floor, loft, or story in a building; especially, a floor of a house, which forms a complete residence in itself.

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. [Colloq.]

Or if you can not make a speech, Because you are a flat. --Holmes.

8. (Mus.) A character [[flat]] before a note, indicating a tone which is a half step or semitone lower.

9. (Geom.) A homaloid space or extension.

Flat

Flat\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Flatted; p. pr. & vb. n. Flatting.]

1. To make flat; to flatten; to level.

2. To render dull, insipid, or spiritless; to depress.

Passions are allayed, appetites are flatted. --Barrow.

3. To depress in tone, as a musical note; especially, to lower in pitch by half a tone.

Flat

Flat\, v. i. 1. To become flat, or flattened; to sink or fall to an even surface. --Sir W. Temple.

2. (Mus.) To fall form the pitch.

To flat out, to fail from a promising beginning; to make a bad ending; to disappoint expectations. [Colloq.]

Flat

Flat\, a. 1. (Golf) Having a head at a very obtuse angle to the shaft; -- said of a club.

2. (Gram.) 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 -["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.

3. (Hort.) Flattening at the ends; -- said of certain fruits.

Language Translation for : flat

Spanish: llano, plano, liso,

German: flach,

Japanese: 平らな

More Translations »

flat

adj.
1. [common] Lacking any complex internal structure. "That bitty box has only a flat filesystem, not a hierarchical one." The verb form is flatten.
2. Said of a memory architecture (like that of the VAX or 680x0) that is one big linear address space (typically with each possible value of a processor register corresponding to a unique core address), as opposed to a `segmented' architecture (like that of the 80x86) in which addresses are composed from a base-register/offset pair (segmented designs are generally considered cretinous).

Note that sense 1 (at least with respect to filesystems) is usually used pejoratively, while sense 2 is a Good Thing.

Jargon File 4.2.0
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flat (adj.)

c.1320, from O.N. flatr, from P.Gmc. *flataz (cf. O.H.G. flaz "flat, level," O.E. flet, O.H.G. flezzi "floor"), perhaps from PIE *pla- (cf. Gk. platys "broad, flat;" see place (n.)). Sense of "prosaic, dull" is from 1573; used of drink from 1607; of musical notes from 1591, because the tone is "lowered." Flatfish is from 1710. Flat-footed "unprepared" is 1912 U.S. baseball slang, on notion of "not on one's toes; earlier it meant "straightforwardly" (1828), from notion of "standing firmly." Flat-out (adv.) "openly, directly" is from 1932; earlier it was a noun meaning "total failure" (1870, U.S. colloquial). Flatware is distinguished from hollow ware.

flat (n.)

1801, from Scot. flat "floor or story of a house," from O.E. flet "a dwelling, floor, ground," from the same source as flat (adj.) (q.v.).

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.

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.

Main Entry: flat
Function: adjective
: not varying flat rate>; specifically of a tax : having a rate that remains constant for any taxable base

Main Entry: flat
Function: adverb
: without interest charge; especially : without allowance or charge for accrued interest flat>

Main Entry: flat
Pronunciation: 'flat
Function: adjective
Inflected Forms: flat·ter; flat·test
1 : being orcharacterized by a horizontal line or tracing without peaks or depressions flat indicating that her brain function is gone —Don Gold>
2 : characterized by general impoverishment in the presence of emotion-evoking stimuli <flat affect often occurs in schizophrenia> —flat·ness noun

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.

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