What is "flat"

Flat \Flat\ (fl[a^]t), a. [Compar. Flatter (fl[a^]t"r[~e]r); superl. Flattest (fl[a^]t"t[e^]st).] [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.

   Syn: flat-out.

   Flat burglary as ever was committed.
   --Shak.

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

8. (Mus.)

   1. Below the true pitch; hence, as applied to intervals, minor, or lower by a half step; as, a flat seventh; A flat.

   2. 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.

10. (Golf) Having a head at a very obtuse angle to the shaft; -- said of a club.

11. (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.

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

    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.

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\, 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\, 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:

   1. A flat-bottomed boat, without keel, and of small draught.

   2. A straw hat, broad-brimmed and low-crowned.

   3. (Railroad Mach.) A car without a roof, the body of which is a platform without sides; a platform car.

   4. 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; an apartment taking up a whole floor. In this latter sense, the usage is more common in British English.

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.

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).

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).

c.1600, "to lay flat;" 1670s in music, from flat (adj.). Related: Flatted; flatting.

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."\n

\nSense 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.

Etymology 1

1. Having no variations in height. adv. 1 So as to be flat. 2 Bluntly. 3 (qualifier: with units of time, distance, etc) Not exceeding. 4 Completely. 5 Directly; flatly. 6 (context finance slang English) Without allowance for accrued interest. alt. Having no variations in height. n. An area of level ground. v

2. 1 (context poker slang English) To make a flat call; to call without raise#Verb. 2 (context intransitive English) To become flat or flattened; to sink or fall to an even surface. 3 (context intransitive music colloquial English) To fall from the pitch. 4 (context transitive music English) To depress in tone, as a musical note; especially, to lower in pitch by half a tone. 5 (context transitive dated English) To make flat; to flatten; to level. 6 (context transitive dated English) To render dull, insipid, or spiritless; to depress. Etymology 2

   n. (context archaic New England now chiefly British English) An apartment.

1. adv. at full length; "he fell flat on his face"

2. with flat sails; "sail flat against the wind"

3. below the proper pitch; "she sang flat last night"

4. against a flat surface; "he lay flat on his back"

5. in a forthright manner; candidly or frankly; "he didn't answer directly"; "told me straight out"; "came out flat for less work and more pay" [syn: directly, straight] [ant: indirectly]

6. wholly or completely; "He is flat broke"

7. [also: flatting, flatted, flattest, flatter]

1. adj. having a horizontal surface in which no part is higher or lower than another; "a flat desk"; "acres of level farmland"; "a plane surface" [syn: level, plane]

2. having no depth or thickness

3. not modified or restricted by reservations; "a categorical denial"; "a flat refusal" [syn: categoric, categorical, unconditional]

4. stretched out and lying at full length along the ground; "found himself lying flat on the floor" [syn: prostrate]

5. lacking contrast or shading between tones [ant: contrasty]

6. lowered in pitch by one chromatic semitone; "B flat" [ant: natural, sharp]

7. flattened laterally along the whole length (e.g., certain leafstalks or flatfishes) [syn: compressed]

8. lacking taste or flavor or tang; "a bland diet"; "insipid hospital food"; "flavorless supermarket tomatoes"; "vapid beer"; "vapid tea" [syn: bland, flavorless, flavourless, insipid, savorless, savourless, vapid]

9. lacking stimulating characteristics; uninteresting; "a bland little drama"; "a flat joke" [syn: bland]

10. having lost effervescence; "flat beer"; "a flat cola"

11. not increasing as the amount taxed increases [syn: fixed]

12. not made with leavening; "most flat breads are made from unleavened dough" [syn: unraised]

13. parallel to the ground; "a flat roof"

14. without pleats [syn: unpleated]

15. lacking the expected range or depth; not designed to give an illusion or depth; "a film with two-dimensional characters"; "a flat two-dimensional painting" [syn: two-dimensional]

16. (of a tire) completely or partially deflated

17. not reflecting light; not glossy; "flat wall paint"; "a photograph with a matte finish" [syn: mat, matt, matte, matted]

18. lacking variety in shading; "a flat unshaded painting"

19. [also: flatting, flatted, flattest, flatter]

1. n. a level tract of land

2. a shallow box in which seedlings are started

3. a musical notation indicating one half step lower than the note named

4. freight car without permanent sides or roof [syn: flatcar, flatbed]

5. a deflated pneumatic tire [syn: flat tire]

6. scenery consisting of a wooden frame covered with painted canvas; part of a stage setting

7. a suite of rooms usually on one floor of an apartment house [syn: apartment]

8. [also: flatting, flatted, flattest, flatter]

A flat (short for scenery flat), backcloth, backdrop, or coulisse is a flat piece of theatrical scenery which is painted and positioned on stage so as to give the appearance of buildings or other background.

Flats can be soft or hard covered (covered with decorative plywood, also known as lauan). Soft-covered flats (covered with muslin) have changed little from their origin in the Italian Renaissance. Hard-covered flats with a frame that is perpendicular to the paint surface are referred to as studio, TV, or Hollywood flats. Flats with a frame that places the width of the lumber parallel

Usually flats are built in standard sizes of 8, 10, or 12 feet tall (, , or ) so that walls or other scenery may easily be constructed, and so that flats may be stored and reused for subsequent productions.

Often affixed to battens flown in from the fly tower or loft for the scenes in which they are used, they may also be stored at the sides of the stage, called wings, and braced to the floor when in use for an entire performance.

Some casts have a tradition of signing the back of flats used on their production.

In geometry, a flat is a subset of -dimensional space that is congruent to a Euclidean space of lower dimension. The flats in two-dimensional space are points and lines, and the flats in three-dimensional space are points, lines, and planes. In -dimensional space, there are flats of every dimension from 0 to . Flats of dimension are called hyperplanes.

Flats are similar to linear subspaces, except that they need not pass through the origin. If Euclidean space is considered as an affine space, the flats are precisely the affine subspaces. Flats are important in linear algebra, where they provide a geometric realization of the solution set for a system of linear equations.

A flat is also called a linear manifold or linear variety.

The flat in American and Canadian football is the area of the field extending ten yards into the defensive backfield from the line of scrimmage and extending outside the hash marks to the out-of-bounds lines (a distance of about 15 yards).

Offenses will typically exploit the flat in order to neutralize a strong attack from the defensive line in the middle of the field or to manipulate a defense's strong pass coverage farther down field. For example, in flat route plays, quarterbacks pass the ball to a player (often a running back) in the flat in hopes that, while the pass has not gone downfield, the receiver (far from the middle of the field and not far downfield enough to worry about cornerbacks and safeties) will have a clear line for an after-the-catch run. If the quarterback hopes to throw farther downfield, the running back in the flat is an outlet receiver. If the receiver is accompanied by blockers, the play is called a screen pass.

Defenses meanwhile will generally assign a linebacker "flat responsibility" to guard against such passes, but it is difficult to defend against because the offense will usually use the flat route in conjunction with an attack downfield (sometimes as a feint), necessitating a quick linebacker adjustment to make an early tackle against a faster running back after the pass.

The flat, then, denotes one of the many areas of the field over which offensive and defensive coordinators play.

A flat shot in tennis is made by striking the ball at a neutral level. Unlike the backspin and topspin the ball is hit with a swipe at neutral level. This effect is created by driving through the ball to push it forward rather than brushing up or down the back creating spin. The shot is commonly used for power and helps quicken the pace on the ball during play.

flat commonly refers to:

• Flatness, which describes an object or condition that is very smooth or level.

Flat or flats may also refer to:

A flat is a relatively level surface of land within a region of greater relief, such as hills or mountains, usually used in the plural. The term is often used to name places with such features, for example, Yucca Flat or Henninger Flats. Flat is also used to describe other level geographic areas as mud flats or tidal flats.