flat
pronunciation
How to pronounce flat in British English:
UK [flæt]
How to pronounce flat in American English:
US [flæt]
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- Noun:
- a level tract of land
- a shallow box in which seedlings are started
- a musical notation indicating one half step lower than the note named
- freight car without permanent sides or roof
- a deflated pneumatic tire
- scenery consisting of a wooden frame covered with painted canvas; part of a stage setting
- a suite of rooms usually on one floor of an apartment house
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- Adjective:
- having a horizontal surface in which no part is higher or lower than another
- having no depth or thickness
- not modified or restricted by reservations
- stretched out and lying at full length along the ground
- lacking contrast or shading between tones
- lowered in pitch by one chromatic semitone
- flattened laterally along the whole length (e.g., certain leafstalks or flatfishes)
- lacking taste or flavor or tang
- lacking stimulating characteristics; uninteresting
- having lost effervescence
- not increasing as the amount taxed increases
- not made with leavening
- parallel to the ground
- without pleats
- lacking the expected range or depth; not designed to give an illusion or depth
- (of a tire) completely or partially deflated
- not reflecting light; not glossy
- lacking variety in shading
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- Adverb:
- at full length
- with flat sails
- below the proper pitch
- against a flat surface
- in a forthright manner; candidly or frankly
- wholly or completely
Word Origin
- flat
- flat: [14] The Old English word for ‘flat’ was efen ‘even’, and flat was not acquired until Middle English times, from Old Norse flatr. This came from a prehistoric Germanic *flataz, source also of German platt ‘flat’. And *flataz probably goes back to an Indo-European *pelə -, *plā-, denoting ‘spread out flat’, from which came Sanskrit prthūs ‘broad’, Greek platūs ‘broad’ (source of English place, plaice, plane [the tree], and platypus), Latin plānus ‘flat’ (whence English plane and plain ‘unadorned’), and also English place, plaice, plant, and flan. Flat ‘single-storey dwelling’ [19] is ultimately the same word, but it has a more circuitous history.It is an alteration (inspired no doubt by the adjective flat) of a now obsolete Scottish word flet ‘interior of a house’, which came from a prehistoric Germanic *flatjam ‘flat surface, floor’, a derivative of the same source (*flataz) as produced the adjective.=> flan, flatter, floor, place, plaice, plane, platypus
- flat (adj.)
- c. 1300, "stretched out (on a surface), prostrate, lying the whole length on the ground;" mid-14c., "level, all in one plane; even, smooth;" of a roof, "low-pitched," from Old Norse flatr "flat," from Proto-Germanic *flata- (cognates: Old Saxon flat "flat, shallow," Old High German flaz "flat, level," Old English flet (for which see flat (n.)), Old High German flezzi "floor"), from PIE *plat- "to spread" (source of Greek platys "broad, flat;" see plaice (n.)). From c. 1400 as "without curvature or projection." Sense of "prosaic, dull" is from 1570s, on the notion of "featureless, lacking contrast." Used of drink from c. 1600; of musical notes from 1590s, because the tone is "lower" than a given or intended pitch; of women's bosoms by 1864. Flat tire or flat tyre is from 1908. Flat-screen (adj.) in reference to television is from 1969 as a potential technology. Flat-earth (adj.) in reference to refusal to accept evidence of a global earth, is from 1876.
- flat (n.)
- 1801, "a story of a house," from Scottish flat "floor or story of a house," from Old English flett "a dwelling; floor, ground," from the same source as flat (adj.). Meaning "floor or part of a floor set up as an apartment" is from 1824. Directly from flat (adj.) come the senses "level ground near water" (late 13c.); "a flat surface, the flat part of anything" (1374), and "low shoe" (1834).
- flat (adv.)
- 1550s, "absolutely, downright;" 1570s, "plainly, positively," from flat (adj.). Flat-out (adv.) "openly, directly" is from 1932, originally in motor racing, picked up in World War II by the airmen; earlier it was a noun meaning "total failure" (1870, U.S. colloquial).
- flat (v.)
- c. 1600, "to lay flat;" 1670s in music, from flat (adj.). Related: Flatted; flatting.
Example
- 1. For centuries the ancients believed the earth was flat .
- 2. But at wimbledon the playing field is flat .
- 3. In fact , the floor is absolutely flat .
- 4. Even in companies , traces of this flat structure exists .
- 5. They sent a laser beam past a spherical electrode toward an oppositely charged flat electrode .