The Collaborative International Dictionary
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.]
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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. -
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. -
(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. Tasteless; stale; vapid; insipid; dead; as, fruit or drink flat to the taste.
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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. Lacking liveliness of commercial exchange and dealings; depressed; dull; as, the market is flat.
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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. -
(Mus.)
Below the true pitch; hence, as applied to intervals, minor, or lower by a half step; as, a flat seventh; A flat.
Not sharp or shrill; not acute; as, a flat sound.
(Phonetics) Sonant; vocal; -- applied to any one of the sonant or vocal consonants, as distinguished from a nonsonant (or sharp) consonant.
(Golf) Having a head at a very obtuse angle to the shaft; -- said of a club.
(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.
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(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.
Usage examples of "flat paper".
Three large, dirty buses were parked side by side under a flat paper sunshade, along with three robot bikes.
So his life seemed now: he could poke himself through the flat paper of the map-city he walked on and he would come out on the other side, having only made a hole in non-reality.
They were printed three-dimensionally on flat paper and they showed complex systems.
Could he fill his flat paper streets with the movement of life that I observed like a god from on high?
Hanging on the barn wall was a map of downtown Washington, and as Ernie stirred the lead, he turned to look at it, his brain churning over the flat paper image and his own mental picture.
He put the sandwich on the flat paper bag and stood up all in one long smooth motion.
You just can't map the surface of the globe accurately on flat paper.
Architects could provide builders with matchstick and balsa-wood scale models of buildings in three dimensions, but a set of two-dimensional models on flat paper - blueprints - is easier to carry around in a briefcase, easier to amend, and easier to work from.
Only a flat paper folder at the very bottom of the trunk, buried under everything else.
As the laughing began to slack, a flat paper mask emerged into the light, looked left, then right, then straight ahead that all but the few behind the entrance could see.