Flat /(flăt)/

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. 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.

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. Below the true pitch; hence, as applied to intervals, minor, or lower by a half step; as, a flat seventh; A flat. (Mus.)
9. Sonant; vocal; -- applied to any one of the sonant or vocal consonants, as distinguished from a nonsonant (or sharp) consonant. (Phonetics)
10. Having a head at a very obtuse angle to the shaft; -- said of a club. (Golf)
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. 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.

1. In a flat manner; directly; flatly.

   Sin is flat opposite to the Almighty.

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

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. Something broad and flat in form (Railroad Mach.)
4. The flat part, or side, of anything; as, the broad side of a blade, as distinguished from its edge.
5. A floor, loft, or story in a building; (Arch.)
6. A horizontal vein or ore deposit auxiliary to a main vein; also, any horizontal portion of a vein not elsewhere horizontal. (Mining)
7. A dull fellow; a simpleton; a numskull. [Colloq.]

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

8. A character [♭] before a note, indicating a tone which is a half step or semitone lower. (Mus.)
9. A homaloid space or extension. (Geom.)

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.

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

1. To become flat, or flattened; to sink or fall to an even surface.
2. To fall form the pitch. (Mus.)