FLAT, a. [L. latus, broad; Gr.; Eng. blade.]

1. Having an even surface, without risings or indentures, hills or valleys; as, flat land.
2. Horizontal; level without inclination; a flat roof; or with a moderate inclination or slope; for we often apply the word to the roof of a house that is not steep, though inclined.
3. Prostrate; lying the whole length on the ground. He fell or lay flat on the ground.
4. Not elevated or erect; fallen. Cease t' admire, and beauty's plumes / Fall flat. Milton.
5. Level with the ground; totally fallen. What ruins kingdoms, and lays cities flat. Milton.
6. In painting, wanting relief or prominence of the figures.
7. Tasteless; stale; vapid; insipid; dead; as, fruit flat to the taste. Philips.
8. Dull; unanimated; frigid; without point or spirit; applied to discourses and compositions. The sermon was very flat.
9. Depressed; spiritless; dejected. I feel – my hopes all flat. Milton.
10. Unpleasing; not affording gratification. How flat and insipid are all the pleasures of this life!
11. Peremptory; absolute; positive; downright. He gave the petitioner a flat denial. Thus repulsed, our final hope / Is flat despair. Milton.
12. Not sharp or shrill; not acute; as, a flat sound. Bacon.
13. Low, as the prices of goods; or dull, as sales.

1. A level or extended plain. In America, it is applied particularly to low ground or meadow that is level, but it denotes any land of even surface and of some extent.
2. A level ground lying at a small depth under the surface of water; a shoal; a shallow; a strand; a sand bank under water.
3. The broad side of a blade. Dryden.
4. Depression of thought or language. Dryden.
5. A surface without relief or prominences. Bentley.
6. In music, a mark of depression in sound. A flat denotes a fall or depression of half a tone.
7. A boat, broad and flat-bottomed. A flat-bottomed boat is constructed for conveying passengers or troops, horses, carriages and baggage.

1. To grow flat; to fall to an even surface. Temple.
2. To become insipid, or dull and unanimated. King Charles.

1. To level; to depress; to lay smooth or even; to make broad and smooth; to flatten. Bacon.
2. To make vapid or tasteless. Bacon.
3. To make dull or unanimated.

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. In a flat manner; directly; flatly.
   
   

   Sin is flat opposite to the Almighty. Herbert.

3. 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.

4. To make flat] to flatten; to level.
5. To become flat, or flattened; to sink or fall to an even surface.
   
   
   Sir W. Temple.
6. Having a head at a very obtuse angle to the shaft; -- said of a club.
7. 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.

8. Without allowance for accrued interest.
   
   
   [Broker's Cant]

9. 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.

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

    Passions are allayed, appetites are flatted. Barrow.

11. To fall form the pitch.
    
    

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

12. 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.
13. Wanting relief; destitute of variety; without points of prominence and striking interest.
    
    

    A large part of the work is, to me, very flat. Coleridge.

14. Something broad and flat in form
    
    
    ; as: (a)
15. To depress in tone, as a musical note; especially, to lower in pitch by half a tone.
16. Flattening at the ends; -- said of certain fruits.
17. Tasteless; stale; vapid; insipid; dead; as, fruit or drink flat to the taste.
18. The flat part, or side, of anything; as, the broad side of a blade, as distinguished from its edge.
19. 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.

20. A floor, loft, or story in a building; especially, a floor of a house, which forms a complete residence in itself.
21. Lacking liveliness of commercial exchange and dealings; depressed; dull; as, the market is flat.
22. A horizontal vein or ore deposit auxiliary to a main vein; also, any horizontal portion of a vein not elsewhere horizontal.
    
    
    Raymond.
23. Clear; unmistakable; peremptory; absolute; positive; downright.
    
    

    Flat burglary as ever was committed. Shak.

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

24. A dull fellow; a simpleton; a numskull.
    
    
    [Colloq.]

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

25. Below the true pitch; hence, as applied to intervals, minor, or lower by a half step; as, a flat seventh; A flat.
    
    
    (b)
26. A character [***flat]] before a note, indicating a tone which is a half step or semitone lower.
27. 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. 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.

28. A homaloid space or extension.