From WordNet (r) 2.0 (August 2003) [wn]:
flat
adj 1: 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"
n 1: 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]
adv 1: 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"
From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:
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.
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Though sun and moon
Were in the flat sea sunk. --Milton.
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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.
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What ruins kingdoms, and lays cities flat! --Milton.
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I feel . . . my hopes all flat. --Milton.
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3. (Fine Arts) Wanting relief; destitute of variety; without
points of prominence and striking interest.
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A large part of the work is, to me, very flat.
--Coleridge.
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4. Tasteless; stale; vapid; insipid; dead; as, fruit or drink
flat to the taste.
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5. Unanimated; dull; uninteresting; without point or spirit;
monotonous; as, a flat speech or composition.
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How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable
Seem to me all the uses of this world. --Shak.
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6. Lacking liveliness of commercial exchange and dealings;
depressed; dull; as, the market is flat.
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7. Clear; unmistakable; peremptory; absolute; positive;
downright.
Syn: flat-out.
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Flat burglary as ever was committed. --Shak.
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A great tobacco taker too, -- that's flat.
--Marston.
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8. (Mus.)
(a) Below the true pitch; hence, as applied to intervals,
minor, or lower by a half step; as, a flat seventh; A
flat.
(b) Not sharp or shrill; not acute; as, a flat sound.
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9. (Phonetics) Sonant; vocal; -- applied to any one of the
sonant or vocal consonants, as distinguished from a
nonsonant (or sharp) consonant.
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10. (Golf) Having a head at a very obtuse angle to the shaft;
-- said of a club.
[Webster 1913 Suppl.]
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.
[Webster 1913 Suppl.]
12. (Hort.) Flattening at the ends; -- said of certain
fruits.
[Webster 1913 Suppl.]
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.
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Of all who fell by saber or by shot,
Not one fell half so flat as Walter Scott. --Lord
Erskine.
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From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:
Flat \Flat\, adv.
1. In a flat manner; directly; flatly.
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Sin is flat opposite to the Almighty. --Herbert.
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2. (Stock Exchange) Without allowance for accrued interest.
[Broker's Cant]
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From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:
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.
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Envy is as the sunbeams that beat hotter upon a
bank, or steep rising ground, than upon a flat.
--Bacon.
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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.
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Half my power, this night
Passing these flats, are taken by the tide. --Shak.
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3. Something broad and flat in form; as:
(a) A flat-bottomed boat, without keel, and of small
draught.
(b) A straw hat, broad-brimmed and low-crowned.
(c) (Railroad Mach.) A car without a roof, the body of
which is a platform without sides; a platform car.
(d) A platform on wheel, upon which emblematic designs,
etc., are carried in processions.
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4. The flat part, or side, of anything; as, the broad side of
a blade, as distinguished from its edge.
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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.
[1913 Webster +PJC]
6. (Mining) A horizontal vein or ore deposit auxiliary to a
main vein; also, any horizontal portion of a vein not
elsewhere horizontal. --Raymond.
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7. A dull fellow; a simpleton; a numskull. [Colloq.]
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Or if you can not make a speech,
Because you are a flat. --Holmes.
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8. (Mus.) A character [[flat]] before a note, indicating a
tone which is a half step or semitone lower.
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9. (Geom.) A homaloid space or extension.
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From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:
Flat \Flat\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Flatted; p. pr. & vb. n.
Flatting.]
1. To make flat; to flatten; to level.
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2. To render dull, insipid, or spiritless; to depress.
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Passions are allayed, appetites are flatted.
--Barrow.
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3. To depress in tone, as a musical note; especially, to
lower in pitch by half a tone.
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From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:
Flat \Flat\, v. i.
1. To become flat, or flattened; to sink or fall to an even
surface. --Sir W. Temple.
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2. (Mus.) To fall form the pitch.
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To flat out, to fail from a promising beginning; to make a
bad ending; to disappoint expectations. [Colloq.]
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From The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (19 Sep 2003) [foldoc]:
flat
1. Lacking any complex internal structure. "That bitty box
has only a flat file system, not a hierarchical one." The verb
form is flatten. Usually used pejoratively (at least with
respect to file systems).
2. Said of a memory architecture like that of the VAX or
Motorola 680x0 that is one big linear address space
(typically with each possible value of a processor register
corresponding to a unique address). This is a Good Thing.
The opposite is a "segmented" architecture like that of the
Intel 80x86 in which addresses are composed from a
base-register/offset pair. Segmented designs are generally
considered cretinous.
3. A flat domain is one where all elements except bottom
are incomparable (equally well defined). E.g. the integers.
[Jargon File]
From Jargon File (4.4.4, 14 Aug 2003) [jargon]:
flat
adj.
1. [common] Lacking any complex internal structure. "That bitty box
has only a flat filesystem, not a hierarchical one." The verb form is
flatten.
2. Said of a memory architecture (like that of the VAX or 680x0)
that is one big linear address space (typically with each possible
value of a processor register corresponding to a unique core
address), as opposed to a segmented architecture (like that of the
80x86) in which addresses are composed from a base-register/offset
pair (segmented designs are generally considered cretinous).
Note that sense 1 (at least with respect to filesystems) is usually
used pejoratively, while sense 2 is a Good Thing.