Flat a., adv. and sb.³

Forms: 5–7 flatte, (9 dial.) flatt, 4– flat. [a. ON. flatr (Sw. flat, Da. flad) = OHG. flaȝ:—OTeut. *flato-. Cf. FLET.

  No certain cognates are known; connection with OAryan *plat-, plath- (Gr. πλατύς, Skr. pṛthú, broad) is plausible with regard to the sense (cf. F. plat flat, believed to be ultimately from πλατύς), but the representation of OAryan t or th by Teut. t (exc. when reduced from tt after a long vowel) is anomalous. The synonymous Ger. flach is unconnected.]

  A.  adj.

  I.  Literal senses.

  1.  Horizontally level; without inclination. Of a seam of coal: Lying in its original plane of deposition; not tilted.

c. 1400.  Destr. Troy, 7326. He felle to þe flat erthe, flote he no lengur.

c. 1440.  Prom. Parv., 164/1. Flatt, bassus vel planus.

1605.  Shaks., Lear, III. ii. 7.

1634.  Sir T. Herbert, Trav., 35. The houses are flat a top: their materiall Sunne-dried Bricks.

1634.  Milton, Comus, 373.

1669.  Sturmy, Mariner’s Mag., VII. v. 6. As the common flat Mariners Compass doth divide the Horizon.

1805.  Forsyth, Beauties Scotl., I. 268. The strata near the Esk are termed flat seams of coal.

1842–76.  Gwilt, Archit., § 1903g. In India, where all buildings of any importance have flat roofs, the long established practice is to form them of tiles.

1860.  Tyndall, Glac., I. ix. 62. Making a détour round a steep concave slope of the glacier, I reached the flat summit of the rock.

1879.  Harlan, Eyesight, ix. 133. A flat desk promotes a stooping position, with its attendant evils of close sight and gravitation of blood to the eyes, and, besides, does not permit the direction of vision most favorable to the natural and easy movement of the eyeballs.

  b.  Arch. Flat arch (see quots.).

1715.  Leoni, Palladio’s Archit., I. xxiv. Arches … flat (those are call’d so, which are but a Section of a Circle). Ibid., I. xxv. Certain Arches are turn’d over the Cornices of Doors and Windows, which Workmen call Flat-Arches, to prevent the Doors and Windows from being press’d with too much weight.

1762.  H. Walpole, Vertue’s Anecd. Paint., I. v. 114. This Saxon style begins to be defined by flat and round arches, by some undulating zigzags on certain old fabrics, and by a very few other characteristics, all evidences of barbarous and ignorant times.

1872.  Shipley, Gloss. Eccles. Terms, Flat arch. An arch in which the sides of the voussoirs are cut so as to support each other, but their ends form a straight line top and bottom.

  2.  Spread out, stretched or lying at full length (esp. on the ground); rare, exc. in predicative use (often quasi-advb.) with fall, fling, lay, lie, etc.

  a.  Chiefly of a person: Prostrate; with the body at full length. † Also in phr. a flat fall.

c. 1320.  Sir Beues, 1037.

1399.  Langl., Rich. Redeles, II. 183.

1440.  Jacob’s Well, 23. Sche eet but breed & watyr, and flatt on þe ground cryed: ‘god, þat madyst me, haue mercy on me!’

c. 1450.  Holland, Howlat, 838. The folk … Flang him flat in þe fyre, fetheris and all.

1535.  Coverdale, Isa. xlix. 23. They shal fall before the with their faces flat vpon the earth, and lick vp the dust of thy fete: that thou mayest knowe, how that I am the Lorde.

1610.  Shaks., Temp., II. ii. 16.

1621.  Lady M. Wroth, Urania, 138. Amphilanthus continuing his still enioyed victories, mone parting from him without flat falles, or apparant losse of honour.

1657.  J. Smith, Myst. Rhet., 56. Thus a great wound is called a scratch; a flat fall, a foile, and a raging railer, a testy fellow, &c.

1719.  De Foe, Crusoe (1840), II. xiv. 293. A second coming upon my left, gave me a blow on the head, which I never felt till afterwards, and wondered, when I came to myself, what was the matter, and where I was, for he laid me flat on the ground.

1726.  Adv. Capt. R. Boyle, 290. I order’d every Man, as soon as they had discharg’d, to lye flat upon their Bellies till we had receiv’d the Fire of the Enemy; which accordingly we did.

1856.  Kane, Arct. Expl., I. xxx. 411. When the walrus is above water, the hunter is flat and motionless; as he begins to sink, alert and ready for a spring.

1860–1.  Flo. Nightingale, Nursing, 33. I have seen a patient fall flat on the ground who was standing when his nurse came into the room.

1891.  R. Kipling, Tales from Hills, 186. That night, a big wind blew, an’ blew, an’ blew, an’ blew the tents flat.

  b.  Of a building or city: Level with the ground; also, leveled, overthrown.

1560.  Bible (Genev.), Josh. vi. 20. When the people heard the sound of the trumpet, and the people shouted with a great shout, that the wall fell downe flat, so that the people went up into the citie, every man straight before him, and they tooke the citie.

1607.  Shaks., Cor., III. i. 204.

1666.  South, Serm. Consecr. Bp. Rochester, Serm. (1737), I. v. 166. That Christ-Church stands so high above ground, and that the Church of Westminster lies not flat upon it, is your Lordship’s Commendation.

1671.  Milton, P. R., IV. 362.

  fig.  1611.  Shaks., Cymb., I. iv. 23. To fortifie her iudgement, which else an easie battery might lay flat.

  c.  Of things usually more or less erect or elevated.

1671.  Milton, P. R., II. 223.

  fig.  1671.  Milton, Samson, 594.

1684.  T. Hockin, God’s Decrees, 333. To raise our expectations of happiness high, and then to have them fall flat and low.

  † d.  Of a plant: Creeping, trailing on the ground.

1578.  Lyte, Dodoens, I. lxxxvi. 127. Verbenaca supina … in English Base or flat Veruayne.

  e.  Lying in close apposition; with its whole length or surface in contact irrespectively of position. Naut. Of a sail: Flat aback or aft (see quot. 1815): said also of the vessel.

1559.  W. Cunningham, Cosmogr. Glasse, 86. Placing my Instrument flat on th’ earth.

1581.  J. Maplet, Diall Destinie, 66. In theyr coursing they [Hares] apply their eares fast and flat to their backes.

1684.  R. H., School Recreat., 138. Spreading your Net on the Ground smooth and flat, stake the two lower Ends firm, and let the upper ends be extended on the long Cord.

1715.  Desaguliers, Fires Impr., 131. When it is open, it may be flat to the Chimney.

1769.  Falconer, Dict. Marine (1789), s.v. Aback, Lay all flat Aback.

1796.  Withering, Brit. Plants, IV. 76. Saucers dark green, lying flat on the leaves; border granulated.

1815.  Falconer’s Dict. Marine (ed. Burney), Flat aft is the situation of the sails when their surfaces are pressed aft against the mast by the force of the wind.

1840.  R. H. Dana, Bef. Mast, vi. ‘All hands ahoy! a man overboard!’ This unwonted cry sent a thrill through the heart of every one, and hurrying on deck, we found the vessel hove flat aback, with all her studding-sails set.

1885.  H. J. Stonor, in Law Times, LXXX. 119/1. The ladder was standing flat against the side wall.

  f.  Paper-making. Packed without folding.

1890.  Jacobi, Printing, xxxi. 249. There are different ways of packing—a ream may be either ‘flat,’ ‘folded,’ or ‘lapped.’

  g.  Of the hand: Extended, not clenched.

1847.  Tennyson, The Princess, II. 345.

  3.  Without curvature or projection of surface.

  a.  Of land, the face of the country: Plain, level; not hilly or undulating.

c. 1440.  [see 1].

1553.  Brende, Q. Curtius, IV. 49. A Nacion … inhabiting vpon a flat shore be acustumed to liue on spoiles of the sea, and lye alwaies in a wayt vpon the coste to spoyle such ships as suffre wracke.

1610.  Shaks., Temp., IV. i. 62.

1673.  W. Temple, Observations upon the United Provinces, Wks., 1731, I. iii. 45. Whatever it was, whether Nature or Accident, and upon what Occasion soever it arriv’d, the Soil of the whole Province of Holland is generally flat, like the Sea in a Calm, and looks as if after a long Contention between Land and Water, which it should belong to, it had at length been divided betwen them.

1748.  Relat. Earthq. Lima, 2. This Town was built on a low flat Point of Land, at the Edge of the Sea; so that the Level is not more than nine or ten Feet above the High-Water Mark, which does not rise and fall over four or five.

1838.  Murray’s Hand-bk. N. Germ., 71. The Rhine below Cologne is a most uninteresting river, with high dykes on each side, which protect the flat country from inundations and intercept all view, save of a few villages, church steeples, and farm houses, painted of various colours, which are seen peering above them.

1859.  Jephson, Brittany, xii. 202. The country became more and more flat and uninteresting as I went on.

  b.  Of a surface: Without curvature, indentation, or protuberance; plane, level.

1551.  T. Wilson, Logike, 37. For when they se the grounde beaten flatte round about, & faire to the sight: thei haue a narow gesse by al likelihod that the hare was there a litle before.

1559.  W. Cunningham, Cosmogr. Glasse, 47. As touchyng your opinion, that th’ Earth is flat, I will prove it to be rounde from th’ East to the West: and in like maner, from the North, to the South.

1585.  T. Washington, trans. Nicholay’s Voy. Turkie, IV. xxxvi. 159 b. They … wil not suffer any carued images of saints in their churches, but on flat pictures painted.

1632.  Lithgow, Trav., VI. 262. The flat face of the Rocke, whereon there was nothing but dimples and holes to receiue our feete, which in discending was perillous.

1703.  Moxon, Mech. Exerc., 268. There are two ways to describe the Hollows, and rounds of Moulding in Fascias, or Cornices; one from the oxi, or oxigonium, the other from the half round, or Semicircle, that makes the Moulding flatter, this more circular.

1812–6.  J. Smith, The Panorama of Science and Art, I. 32. To grind one surface perfectly flat, it is indispensably necessary to grind three at the same time.

1824.  R. Stuart, Hist. Steam Engine, 179. The flat face to which the blocks are ground, is about three inches broad, with a groove near the centre, to introduce any kind of elastic packing.

1882.  Syd. Soc. Lex., Chest, flat. A chest which has lost its rounded front.

  c.  Of the face or nose.

c. 1400.  Ywaine & Gaw., 259.

1560.  Bible (Genev.), Lev. xxi. 18. For whosoeuer hath any blemish, shall not come neere: as a man blinde or lame, or that hath a flat nose, or that hath any misshapen member.

1607.  Shaks., Timon, IV. iii. 158.

1697.  Dampier, Voy., I. 325. Their [Mindanayans’] Faces are oval, their Foreheads flat, with black small Eyes, short low Noses, pretty large Mouths.

1829.  Lytton, Devereux, II. iii. He was of a very flat, ill-favoured countenance, but of a quick eye, and a genteel air; there was, however, something constrained and artificial in his address, and he appeared to be endeavouring to clothe a natural good humour with a certain primness which could never be made to fit it.

1836.  W. Irving, Astoria, II. x. 85. Their noses are broad and flat at top, and fleshy at the end, with large nostrils.

  † d.  Flat numbers: those corresponding to plane surfaces, i.e., numbers composed of two factors.

1557.  Recorde, Whetst., C iij. Numbers maie be considered, according to soche formes as thei make other in progression, or in multiplication: And those maie well be named Superficiall nombers, or Flatte nombers.

  e.  Flat side (e.g., of a sword): opposed to the edge. Also to turn (a sword) flat.

a. 1440.  Sir Eglam., 1240.

1727.  W. Snelgrave, Guinea & Slave Trade (1734), 236. He lifted up his broad Sword, and gave me a Blow on the Shoulder with the flat side of it; whispering at the same time these Words in my Ear, ‘I give you this Caution, never to dispute the Will of a Pirate.’

1832.  G. R. Porter, Porcelain & Gl., 226. Form the tubes with an elliptical perforation, which when drawn out will form a mere slit, the flat side of which is to be turned towards the observer.

1835.  Lytton, Rienzi, I. iii. ‘Away, ruffian!’ said Adrian, seeking to further parley, and touching the smith with the flat side of his sword.

  f.  Having little projection from the adjacent surface. Rarely const. to.

1728.  Pope, The Dunciad, II. 43.

1865.  Carlyle, Fredk. Gt., V. XIV. v. 201. It can now be discovered clearly by any eyes, however flat to the head.

  4.  transf. in Painting. Without appearance of relief or projection. Flat tint: one of uniform depth or shade.

1755.  Johnson, Flat, without relief, without prominence of the figures.

1821.  W. M. Craig, Lectures on Drawing, etc., ii. 94–5. Throwing every mass of shadow into a flat tint. Ibid., iii. 153. The pictures, therefore, of that period, whatever they might be in point of invention, composition, and drawing, were, in their general appearance, flat, insipid, and uninteresting.

1859.  Gullick & Timbs, Paint., 18. For in missal painting, from the impossibility of spreading a flat tint on the vellum of which the ancient books were composed, the illuminators were compelled to have recourse to what Fuseli calls the ‘elaborate anguish’ of the system.

1879.  Cassell’s Techn. Educ., III. 186/1. The resulting pictures will be flat, and deficient in light and shade, or brilliance.

  5.  With additional notion: Having a broad level surface and little thickness. Of a foot: Touching the ground with the whole surface; but little arched.

c. 1450.  Two Cookery-bks., 29. Serue hem in almost flatte.

1530.  Palsgr., 312/2. Flatte as a thyng is that is brode.

1577–87.  Harrison, England, III. iii. (1878), III. 224. Of fishes therefore as I find fiue sorts, the flat, the round, the long, the legged [and shelled]: so the flat are diuided into the smooth, scaled and tailed.

1597.  Gerard, Herball, 58. Flat wheate is like vnto the other kindes of Wheate in leaues, stalkes, and rootes, but is bearded and bordered with very rough and sharpe ailes, wherein consisteth the difference.

1613–39.  I. Jones, in Leoni, Palladio’s Archit. (1742), II. 44. Those great Pilasters in the Angle of the inside of the Temple are too flat.

1632.  Lithgow, Trav., VI. 247. They weare on their heads flat round Caps of a blackish colour.

1697.  Dampier, Voy., I. 49. The Booby is a Water-fowl, somewhat less than a Hen, of a light greyish colour…. Her Feet are flat like a Ducks Feet.

a. 1721.  Keill, Maupertuis’ Diss. (1734), 65. These conjectures concerning flat Stars, in particular, are rather the stronger.

1769.  Mrs. Raffald, Eng. Housekpr. (1778), 303. To collar Flat Ribs of Beef.

1840.  Lardner, Geom., 34. This ruler consists of a flat piece of wood with a straight edge, usually divided into inches and parts of an inch.

1859–74.  Tennyson, Vivien, 348.

1888.  Lockwood’s Dict. Terms Mech. Eng., Flat File … is either a tapered or a parallel file.

1882.  Quain, Anat. (ed. 9), I. 8. Tabular or flat bones, like the scapula, ilium, and the bones forming the roof and sides of the skull.

  † b.  Of false dice: Broad and thin. Obs.

c. 1550.  Dice-Play, A j b. A bale of flatte synke deuxis…. A bale of flat cater trees.

1711.  Puckle, Club, 30. Flats. Note, Dice flatter than they are long, to throw Trays and Quaters.

  c.  Of a blade, as opposed to ‘three-edged.’

  d.  Phrases: flat as a flawn, flounder, pancake (see those sbs.).

  e.  Of a vessel: Wide and shallow.

1471.  Bury Wills (Camden), 242. I peluem laton voc’ a flat basyn. Ibid. (1492), 75. My flatte gylte cuppe.

1533.  Will of C. Bedford, in Weaver, Wells Wills, 27. John Bys the yonger a fflat cuppe of sylver.

1552.  Huloet, Flatte bole for wine, ecpatala.

1611.  Bible, Lev. ii. 5. And if thy oblation be a meate offering baken in a panne [marg. on a flat plate or, slice].

  II.  Senses of figurative origin.

  6.  Unrelieved by conditions or qualifications; absolute, downright, unqualified, plain; peremptory. Now chiefly of a denial, contradiction, etc., and in Shakespearian phrases, flat blasphemy, burglary.

1551.  T. Wilson, Logike (1567), 61 a. The aunswerer must still vse flatte deniyng.

1577.  Northbrooke, Dicing (1843), 121. Whosoeuer taketh and keepeth the mony of another, which he hath wonne in play, withholdes it without lawfull cause, and therefore against conscience, and, to speak plainly, sheweth himself a flat theefe.

1586.  B. Young, Guazzo’s Civ. Conv., IV. 183. If I would tel you a flat lie, I wold say no.

1592.  Greene, Upst. Courtier, in Harl. Misc. (Malh.), II. 248. Why, Sir, to be flat with you, you liue by your legges as a iugler by his hands.

1603.  Shaks., Meas. for M., II. ii. 131.

1611.  Beaum. & Fl., King & No King, IV. iii. This is my flat opinion, which I’ll die in.

1614.  Bp. Hall, A Recollection of such Treatises, 864. Who knowes not, that S. Homer, and S. Virgil are flat for it?

1641.  Milton, Ch. Govt., I. (1851), 23. His Son Constantius prov’d a flat Arian, and his Nephew Iulian an Apostate, and there his Race ended.

1685.  Baxter, Paraphr. N. T., 1 Cor. vii. 12, 13. As to the Case of Separation from an Infidel … I bring you not this as a flat command of Christ, but as my best Advice.

1699.  Bentley, Phal., 304. Without all doubt, if he had really meant, Comedy may be call Tragedy; in those following words he would have said, [Greek], ’tis the Design of Tragedy properly so called: and not have left them as they now are, a piece of flat Nonsense.

1713.  Swift, Apollo outwitted, vii.

1788.  T. Jefferson, Writ. (1859), II. 551. To comprehend us with the English, in the exclusion of whale oil from their ports, in flat contradiction to their Arret of December last.

1839.  Keightley, Hist. Eng., I. 97. When he [Robert Curthose] grew up he claimed to be put in possession of the duchy, but met with a flat refusal.

1871.  Morley, Crit. Misc., Ser. I. 163. Persons who have accustomed themselves to ascertained methods of proof, are apt to look on a man who vows that if a thing has been declared true by some authority whom he respects, then that constitutes proof to him, as either the victim of a preposterous and barely credible infatuation, or else as a flat impostor.

1891.  R. Kipling, Tales from Hills, 212. It’s flat, flagrant disobedience!

  b.  In the conclusive expression, That’s flat (a) formerly = that’s the absolute, undeniable truth; (b) a defiant expression of one’s final resolve or determination.

1588.  Shaks., Loves Labour’s Lost, III. i. 102. Clo. The Boy hath sold him a bargaine, a Goose, that’s flat. Ibid. (1596), 1 Hen. IV., IV. ii. 43. I’ll not march through Coventry with them, that’s flat.

1665.  Surv. Aff. Netherl., 120. Gent. Its the greatest Bogg of Europe, and Quagmire of Christendom, thats flat.

1716.  Addison, Drummer, I. i. Coach. I’ll give Madam warning, that’s flat—I’ve always lived in sober families. I’ll not disparage myself to be a servant in a house that’s haunted.

1852.  Smedley, L. Arundel, i. 8. ‘I won’t, then, that’s flat,’ exclaimed Rachel, waxing rebellious in the extremity of her terror.

  c.  Of a calm: Complete, ‘dead.’

1651.  Howell, Venice, 119. Soon were those arguments confuted, when the wind which till now had bin still partiall unto them, became a neutral to both, and a flat calm, giving attention (as it were) to the voice of the Cannon.

1697.  Dampier, Voy., I. 415. Then it fell flat calm, and it continued so for about 2 hours: but the Sky looked very black and rueful.

1880.  Lady Brassey, Sunshine & Storm, 34. Half an hour later it was a flat calm.

  7.  Wanting in points of attraction and interest; prosaic, dull, uninteresting, lifeless, monotonous, insipid. Sometimes with allusion to sense 10.

  a.  of composition, discourse, a joke, etc. Also of a person with reference to his composition, conversation, etc.

1573.  G. Harvey, Letter-bk. (Camden), 20. Wherein I have most ernestly to request your wurship to pardun me, as also in mi over flat and homeli kind of writing.

1656.  Bp. Hall, Occas. Med. (1851), 63. So have I seen pregnant wits, not discreetly governed, overspend themselves in some one master-piece so lavishly, that they have proved either barren, or poor and flat, in all other subjects.

1662.  Pepys, Diary, 11 May. Our Minister being out of town, a dull, flat Presbiter preached.

1711.  Addison, Spect., No. 124, 23 July, ¶ 2. I am afraid we should complain of many flat Expressions, trivial Observations, beaten Topicks, and common Thoughts, which go very well in the Lump.

1712.  W. Rogers, Voy., Introd. 16. Such strange Stories, as make the Voyages of those who come after … to look flat and insipid to unthinking people.

1806–7.  J. Beresford, Miseries Hum. Life (1826), VII. xxx. In conversation—inadvertently touching the string which you know will call forth the longest story of the flattest proser that ever droned.

1822.  Hazlitt, Table-t., Ser. II. x. (1869), 204. Some will pick out the flattest thing of yours they can find, to load it with panegyrics.

1861.  M. Pattison, Ess. (1889), I. 31. Original matter supplements a rather flat treatment of trite themes.

1866.  G. Macdonald, Ann. Q. Neighb., xiii. (1878), 254. I have not much of the dramatic in me, I know, and am rather a flat teller of stories on that account.

1889.  The County, x., in Cornhill Mag., XII. March. He is always appreciative of the flattest joke, which in itself is soothing to the feminine mind, whose humour is generally of the mildest.

  b.  of one’s circumstances, surroundings, etc.

1602.  Shaks., Ham., I. ii. 133.

1706.  Atterbury, Funeral Serm., 8. All Earthly Satisfactions must needs look little, and grow flat and unsavory.

1798.  Coleridge, Fears in Solitude, 64.

1848.  Mrs. Gaskell, M. Barton, xvii. It seems so flat to be left behind.

1884.  Q. Victoria, More Leaves, 25. I rode down that fine wild pass called the Ladder Burn; but it seemed to strike me much less than when I first saw it, as all is flat now.

  c.  To fall flat (said of a composition, discourse, etc.): to prove unattractive, uninteresting, or ineffective; to fail in exciting applause or approval.

1841.  Macaulay, W. Hastings (1880), 654. It fell flat, as the best written defence must have fallen flat, on an assembly accustomed to the animated and strenuous conflicts of Pitt and Fox.

1860.  Dickens, Lett. (1880), II. 125. This no doubt you know too, and all my news falls flat.

1885.  C. L. Pirkis, Lady Lovelace II. xxv. 80. The haranguing and addressing fell as flat as the reasoning.

  8.  Deficient in sense or mental vigor; stupid, dull, slow-witted.

1599.  Shaks., Hen. V., Prol. 9.

1601.  Sir J. Ogle, Parlie at Ostend, in Sir F. Vere, Comm., 158. Nor do I believe that His Highness or any of you judge me so flat, or so stupid as, upon knowledge of such a purpose, in irritating His Highness, I would deliver myself and friend as sacrifices to make another man’s atonement.

a. 1680.  Butler, Rem. (1759), I. 132.

1878.  Seeley, Stein, I. 312. I admire his patience and hope that it may be well grounded, but for myself I look for nothing from empty, slow, flat people.

  9.  Wanting in energy and spirit; lifeless, dull. Also, out of spirits, low, dejected, depressed.

1602.  Shaks., Ham., IV. vii. 31.

1642.  Dk. Newcastle, Let., in Life (1886), 330. The town will not admit of me by no means, so I am very flat and out of countenance here.

c. 1680.  Beveridge, Serm. (1729), I. 37. Lest he should grow flat in his devotions, cool in his charity, remiss in any duty to God or man, or careless of his own eternal good.

1801.  Med. Jrnl., V. 324. Her appetite was very indifferent, and her spirits were dull and flat.

1805.  Lamb, Lett. (1888), I. 213. I now am calm, but sadly taken down and flat.

1844.  Alb. Smith, Adv. Mr. Ledbury, xxiii. (1886), 71. The audience, also, not witnessing any situation half so comic as the one they had just seen, were proportionately flat.

  b.  Of trade, etc.: Depressed, dull, inactive.

1831.  Lincoln Herald, 30 Dec., 1. The trade for barley is exceedingly flat.

1894.  Times (weekly ed.), 9 Feb., 123/2. Tallow trade, flat, but prices unchanged.

1894.  Daily News, 1 June, 3/5. A flat market for maize.

  10.  Of drink, etc.: That has lost its flavour or sharpness; dead, insipid, stale.

1607.  Heywood, Woman kilde, Epil.

1616.  Bacon, Sylva, § 367. That Spirit of Wine burned, till it goe out of it selfe, will burne no more; And tasteth nothing so hot in the Mouth, as it did; No nor yet sowre, (as if it were a degree towards Vinegar,) which Burnt Wine doth; but flat and dead.

1708.  J. Philips, Cyder, I. 46.

1772.  Priestley, in Phil. Trans., LXII. 154. When beer, wine, or cyder, is become flat or dead (which is the consequence of the escape of the fixed air they contained) they may be revived by this means.

1861.  Geo. Eliot, Silas Marner, 44. The fading grey light fell dimly on the walls decorated with guns, whips, and foxes’ brushes, on coats and hats flung on the chairs, on tankards sending forth a scent of flat ale, and on a half-choked fire, with pipes propped up in the chimney-corners: signs of a domestic life destitute of any hallowing charm, with which the look of gloomy vexation on Godfrey’s blond face was in sad accordance.

  11.  Of sound, a resonant instrument, a voice: Not clear and sharp; dead, dull.

1626.  Bacon, Sylva, § 154. If therefore you stop the Holes of a Hawkes Bell, it will make no Ring, but a flat Noise, or Rattle.

a. 1663.  Sanderson, in Treas. Dav., Ps. cl. 5. The cymbal will be flat: it will have no life, nor spirit in it: it will not be loud enough without it.

1718.  Prior, Pleasure, 501.

1831.  Brewster, Nat. Magic, ix. (1833), 217. On the extended heath, where there are no solid objects capable of reflecting or modifying sound, the sportsman must frequently have noticed the unaccountable variety of sounds which are produced by the report of his fowling-piece. Sometimes they are flat and prolonged, at other times short and sharp, and sometimes the noise is so strange that it is referred to some mistake in the loading of the gun.

  b.  Music. Of a note or singer: Relatively low in pitch; below the regular or true pitch. B, D, E, etc. flat: a semitone lower than B, D, E, etc. Of an interval or scale: = MINOR.

1591.  Shaks., Two Gent., I. ii. 93.

1597.  Morley, Introd. Mus., 3. And the ♭ cliefe which is comon to euery part, is made thus ♭ or thus ♯ the one signifying the halfe note and flatt singing: the other signifying the whole note or sharpe singing.

1609.  Douland, Ornith. Microl., 15. To sing Mi in ♭ fa ♯ mi, and fa in a flat Scale.

1613.  Drumm. of Hawth., Poems, 144.

1674.  Playford, Skill Mus., II. 95. A flat Third lower, is C fa vt.

1678.  Phillips, s.v. Cliff, The B-Cliff … being only to shew when Notes are to be sung flat.

1691.  Ray, Creation, 204. For the various modulation of the Voice, the upper end of the Windpipe is endued with several Cartilages and Muscles, to contract or dilate it as we would have our Voice Flat or Sharp.

1773.  Barrington, in Phil. Trans., LXIII. 270. The flat third is plaintive, and consequently adapted to simple movements, such as may be expected in countries where music hath not been long cultivated.

1874.  Helps, Soc. Press., iii. 46. When, for the sixth time, he hears C flat instead of C sharp played in an adjacent house, he is very apt to be distracted from his work, and very much inclined to utter unbecoming language.

1875.  Ouseley, Harmony, v. 67. All the fifths in tuning keyed instruments, are tuned a little flatter than perfection, by one twelfth of the Pythagorean comma, an interval so minute that the ear cannot detect it.

  c.  quasi-adv.

Mod.  She has a tendency to sing flat.

  12.  Gram. † a. Of an accent, a syllable: Unstressed.

1589.  Puttenham, Eng. Poesie, II. xiii. (Arb.), 135. [Re] being the first sillable, passing obscurely away with a flat accent is short, besides that [re] by his Latine originall and also by his ortographie is short.

1612.  Brinsley, Pos. Parts (1669), 94. A. Every Noun Substantive Commune encreasing flat, or short in the Genitive case, is the Masculine Gender. Q. What mean you by this, to encrease flat? A. To have the last syllable but one pressed down flat in the pronouncing: as Sanguis, sanguinis.

  b.  Of a consonant: Voiced, i.e., uttered with vibration of the vocal chords, e.g., b, d, v, etc., as opposed to breath, e.g., p, t, f, etc.

1874.  R. Morris, Hist. Eng. Gram., iv. § 54. B and d, &c. are said to be soft or flat, while p and t, &c. are called hard or sharp consonants.

  13.  Stock-exchange (U.S.) Stock is said to be borrowed flat, when the lender allows no interest on the money he takes as security for it (Cent. and Standard Dicts.).

  14.  Comb.

  a.  In parasynthetic adjs., as flat-backed, -billed, -breasted, -browed, -chested, -crowned, -decked, -ended, -faced, -floored, -handled, -heeled, -hoofed, -mouthed, -pointed, -ribbed, -roofed, -soled, -stemmed, -surfaced, -toothed, -topped, -visaged.

1688.  R. Holme, Armoury, II. ix. 183/1. *Flat Backed, when it [a Grey-Hound] is even between the neck, and spaces.

1646.  Sir T. Browne, Pseud. Ep., III. xix. 154. In latirostrous or *flat-bild birds.

1688.  J. Clayton, in Phil. Trans., XVII. 990. All Flat-bill’d Birds that groped for their Meat.

1667.  N. Fairfax, ibid., II. 548. This Woman was as *Flat-breasted as a Man.

1838.  Dickens, O. Twist, viii. He was a snub-nosed, *flat-browed, common-faced boy enough, and as dirty a juvenile as one would wish to see; but he had about him all the airs and manners of a man.

1771.  Smollett, H. Clinker, Wks. 1806, VI. 63. In her person, she is tall, raw-boned, awkward, *flat-chested, and stooping.

1664.  Wood, Life (Oxf. Hist. Soc.), II. 8. For a new hat *flat-croun’d, 7s 6d.

1884.  J. Colborne, Hicks Pasha, 97. The steamer carried 180 Egyptian troops, and has in tow a *flat-decked vessel with the officers’ horses.

1859.  Handbk. Turning, 97. Put a fine flat-ended tool into the slide, set it to cut a circle the same circumference as the largest in the pattern.

1859.  Helps, Friends in C., Ser. II. II. viii. 143. It [the sea] absolutely requires vessels to be upon it in order to be otherwise than a melancholy *flat-faced thing.

1867.  Smyth, Sailor’s Word-bk., 304. *Flat-floored boats.

1676.  Lond. Gaz., No. 1059/4. *Flat-handled Silver Spoons.

1725.  De Foe, Voy. round World (1840), 267. He had shoes of a particular make, tied on like sandals, flat-heeled, no stockings, his breeches hanging down below the calf of his leg, and his shoes lacing up above his ancles.

1697.  Lond. Gaz., No. 3301/4. A … punch Horse … *flat Hoofed.

a. 1400[?].  Morte Arth., 1088. *Fflatt mowthede as a fluke.

1710.  J. Harris, Lex. Techn., II. *Flat-pointed Nails.

1684.  Lond. Gaz., No. 1908/4. One Dark brown Gelding … a little *flat Ribb’d.

1688.  R. Holme, Armoury, II. ix. 185/2. Flat Ribbed, is when the both side Ribbs [of a Grey-Hound], cling and are near to gather.

1598.  Hakluyt, Voy., III. 391. Their houses are *flat-rooffed, and built of lime and stone, and the streets of their townes are placed in good order.

1847.  Disraeli, Tancred, IV. xii. Castle and convent crown their nobler heights, and flat-roofed villages nestle amid groves of mulberry trees.

1662.  J. Davies, trans. Olearius’ Voy. Ambass., 377. Their shooes are low and *flat-soal’d.

1849.  G. P. R. James, The Woodman, ix. The less elastic tread of the abbess in her flat-soled sandal soon called from behind the pillar a figure in a friar’s gown and cowl.

1861.  Miss Pratt, Flower. Pl., VI. 89. *Flat-stemmed Meadow grass.

1794.  Sullivan, View Nat., I. 193. Place a *flat surfaced bottle empty on its side, and the elasticity of the air within it will prevent the weight of the atmosphere from breaking it.

1766.  Pennant, Zool. (1769), III. 9. Its fancied powers vanished on the discovery of its being nothing but the fossil tooth of the sea-wolf, or of some *flat-toothed fish.

1862.  Ansted, Channel Isl., I. ii. (ed. 2), 32. The southern islet is much lower, and *flat-topped.

1774.  Curtis, in Phil. Trans., LXIV. 383. They are *flat-visaged, and have short noses.

  b.  With pr. pple. forming adj., as flat-lying.

1765.  A. Dickson, Treat. Agric. (ed. 2), 284. In some low flat-lying land, it is proper to make the ridges as flat as possible, in order to raise the furrows; for the higher that the furrows are raised, there is, in some cases, the greater command of the water.

  15.  Special comb., as flat-arch (see 1 b); flat-back, (a) (see quot. 1888); (b) slang, a bedbug (Farmer); † flat-bean, a name for some species of Lupinus; flat-bedded a. (Geol.), having a naturally plane cleavage; flat-bill, a name for certain birds having broad, flat bills, e.g., a bird of the genus Platyrhynchus; flat-body (Entom.), the name of a moth; flat candle, a candle used in a flat candlestick; flat candlestick, one with a broad stand and short stem; a bedroom-candlestick; flat-car (U.S.), ‘a railroad-car consisting of a platform without sides or top; a platform-car’ (Cent. Dict.); flat chisel, a smoothing chisel; flat-crown (Arch.) = CORONA 4; flat-feet (see quot.); flat-hammer, ‘the hammer first used by the gold-beater in swaging out a pile of quartiers or pieces of gold ribbon’ (Knight); † flat-house, ? a sheriff’s office, a roofed shed for impounded animals; flat impression (Printing), see flat-pull; † flat-lap, a term describing a particular posture of the leaves of a plant (see quot.); flat-lead, sheet lead; flat move (slang: see quot.); flat nail (see quot.), flat-orchil, a kind of lichen, Roccella fusiformis, used as a dye (Ogilvie, 18[?]); † flat-piece, a shallow drinking-cup; flat pliers, pliers having the holding pan or jaws flat; flat-pressing (see quot.); flat pull Printing (see quot.); flat race, a race over clear and level ground, as opposed to hurdle-racing or steeple-chasing; whence flat-racer, -racing; flat-rail, ‘a railroad rail consisting of a simple flat bar spiked to a longitudinal sleeper’ (Knight); flat rod (see quot.); flat-roof v. trans., to cover with a flat roof; flat rope (see quots.); flat seam Naut. (see quot.); flat-sheets pl. (a) Mining (see quots.); (b) Geol. and Mining, ‘thin beds, flat veins, or blanket veins or deposits of some mineral usually different from the adjacent layers; often contact-deposits’ (Standard Dict.); flat-square a., of a file: one whose section is a rectangle; flat-stone (a) a kind of stone which cleaves into thin slabs; (b) (see quot. 1847); flat-tool (a), ‘a turning chisel which cuts on both sides and on the end, which is square’ (Knight); (b) an elongated conical tool used in seal-engraving for bringing ribbons or monograms to a flat surface (Cent. Dict.); flat-top (U.S.), a name for Vernonia noveboracensis; flat-ware, ‘plates, dishes, saucers and the like, collectively, as distinguished from hollow-ware’ (Cent. Dict.); flat-work, (a) Mining (see quot. 1851); (b) a piece of material of any kind wrought into a flat shape; flat-worm (Zool.), an animal of the class Platyhelmintha. Also FLAT-BOAT, -BOTTOM, -CAP, -FISH, -FOOT, HEAD, etc.

1888.  Addy, Sheffield Gloss., *Flat-back, a common knife with its back filed down after it is put together.

1597.  Gerard, Herball, 1042. Of the *flat Beane called Lupine.

1657.  W. Coles, Adam in Eden, ccxii. 333. In English, they are usually called Lupines after the Latin Name, yet some call them *Fig-beanes after the Dutch name, because they are flat and round as a Fig that is pressed; and others, Flat-beans for the same reason.

1793.  Smeaton, Edystone L., § 221. No quarries affording *flat bedded stones having occurred.

1860.  Gosse, The Romance of Natural History, 17. The *flat-biil uttered his plaintive wail, occasionally relieved by a note somewhat less mournful.

1819.  G. Samouelle, Entomol. Compend., 443. Tinea applana, The common *Flat-body.

1860.  J. Curtis, Farm Insects, 411. Depressaria depressella—the Purple Carrot and Parsnip Seed Flat-body Moth.

1836–9.  Dickens, Sk. Boz, Scenes, xv. (1892), 125. The flaring *flat candle with the long snuff, gives light enough to show that the things you want, are not where they ought to be.

1493.  Bury Wills (1850), 81. Another *flatt candelstyke of laton.

1859.  Dickens, Haunted Ho., v. 22. A bedroom candlestick and candle, or a flat candlestick and candle—put it which way you like.

1881.  Chicago Times, 18 June. Demolishing a couple of *flat-cars.

1688.  R. Holme, Armoury, III. viii. 359/1. The third is termed a Chissel, or a *Flat Chissel.

1881.  F. Young, Every man his own Mechanic, § 568. The flat chisel … is used for smoothing the work, or taking off the remaining wood that was left by the gouge.

1704.  J. Harris, Lex. Techn., I. s.v. Corona, The *Flat-Crown, is … a particular Member in the Dorick Gate … it hath six times more Breadth than Projecture.

1873.  Slang Dict., *Flat-feet, the battalion companies in the Foot Guards.

1698.  S. Sewall, Diary, 9 March (1878), I. 472. Our Horses are broke out of themselves, or else are taken out of the stable…. Sent presently to their *flat-house, but hear nothing of them. Ibid. (1706), 25 March (1879), II. 157. Surpris’d the Sheriff and his Men at the Flat-house.

1890.  Jacobi, Printing, xxi. 185. To commence with the overlay: pull three or four good sound flat impressions, with not too much ink, on a hard kind of paper.

1671.  Grew, The Anatomy of Plants, I. iv. § 16. Where the Leaves are not so thick set, as to stand in the Bow-Lap, there we have the Plicature, or the *Flat-Lap.

1812.  J. H. Vaux, Flash Dict., s.v., Any attempt or project that miscarries, or any act of folly or mismanagement in human affairs is said to be a *flat move.

c. 1850.  Rudim. Navig. (Weale), 135. *Flat nails are small sharp-pointed nails, with flat thin heads, for nailing the scarphs of moulds.

1422–3.  Abingdon Acc. (Camden), 92. Item j. *flatpece argenti.

1530.  Palsgr., 220/2. Flatte pece, tasse.

1535.  Coverdale, 1 Kings vii. 50. Flat peces, charges, basens, spones and censours of pure golde.

1881.  F. Young, Every man his own Mechanic, § 275. A pair of *flat pliers, of the ordinary kind.

1881.  Porcelain Wks. Worcester, 21. The manufacture of plates and dishes is called *Flat Pressing.

1888.  Jacobi, Printer’s Vocab., *Flat pull (or impression).—A simple proof without under or overlaying.

1848.  Thackeray, Bk. Snobs, xv. Sporting Snobs … those happy beings in whom Nature has implanted a love of slang: who … rode *flat races, and kept bull-terriers.

1886.  Earl of Suffolk, etc., Racing (Badm. Libr.), i. 37. A few *flat-racers have come over [from Ireland] to us, and held their own with, if not defeated, our chosen champions. Ibid., Steeple-chasing, ii. 289–90. As a rule, *flat-racing is a bad preparation for the jumper.

1800.  Daily News, 17 Feb., 3/5. When the flat-racing season begins.

1860.  Ure’s Dict. Arts (ed. 5), II. 226. *Flat rods in mining, a series of rods for communicating motion from the engine, horizontally, to the pumps or other machinery in a distant shaft.

1717.  Tabor, in Phil. Trans., XXX. 562. The Græcians us’d to cover or *Flat-roof their Houses with these [tessellated] Pavements.

1874.  Knight, Dict. Mech., I. 878/2. Some *flat ropes, for mining-shafts, are made by sewing together a number of ropes, making a wide, flat band.

1867.  Smyth, Sailor’s Word-bk., *Flat-seam, the two edges or selvedges of canvas laid over each other and sewed down.

1869.  R. B. Smyth, Gold Fields of Victoria, 611. *Flat-sheet—Sheet-iron flooring at the brace and in the plats and chambers and junction of drives to facilitate the turning and management of trucks.

1892.  Northumbld. Gloss., Flat sheets, smooth iron plates laid over an even floor at a pit bank, on which the tubs are run to be emptied or returned to the cage.

1831.  J. Holland, Manuf. Metal, I. 299. When the files are *flat square, the process of forming them out of these bars is a very simple, though, in reference to the longer sorts, an exceedingly laborious business.

1677.  Plot, Oxfordsh., iv. § 31. 77. The Houses are covered, for the most part in Oxfordshire (not with tiles) but *flat-stone.

1847.  Halliwell, Flat-stone, a measure of iron-stone.

1853.  O. Byrne, Artisan’s Handbk., 28. *Flat tools for turning hard wood, ivory, and steel.

1859.  Bartlett, Dict. Amer., Iron Weed, a plant, called in the North-eastern States *Flat Top.

1653.  Manlove, Lead-Mines, 264. Roof-works, *Flat-works, Pipe-works.

1686.  Plot, Staffordsh., ix. § 7. 335. In hammering of this flatwork they beat the plates first one by one, then two, three, or four together as they grow broader and thinner.

1851.  Tapping, Gloss., to Manlove, Flat Work, a mining term descriptive of a species of lead mine, so called from its form, which is broad, spreading horizontally, not without inclination.

  B.  adv. (Cf. A. 2, in many examples of which the word admits of being taken as adv.)

  † 1.  By horizontal measurement. Obs.

1663.  Gerbier, Counsel, 82. Fret seelings … the workmanship only at five shillings a yard, measured flat.

  2.  Downright, absolutely, positively, plainly; entirely, fully, quite. Cf. DEAD adv. 2. Now rare.

1577–87.  Holinshed, Chron., II. 33/2. As for Gerrot it differeth flat from Girald.

a. 1591.  R. Greenham, Serm., i. (1599), 98. That they that are thus borne againe, cannot sin: that is, they cannot make an occupation of sinne, they cannot fall flat away by sinne.

1601.  Dent, Pathw. Heaven, 246. Touching this point I am flat of your minde. For I thinke verily a man ought to bee perswaded of his saluation.

1703.  Moxon, Mech. Exerc., 114. Rank. The Iron of a Plane is said to be set Rank, when its edge stands so flat below the Sole of the Plane, that in working it will take off a thick shaving.

1770.  Jenner, Placid Man, II. 117. Sir Harry contradicted him flat.

1784.  Bage, Barham Downs, II. 242. I set my cap at him, and that wild thing, Peggy, told me, flat and plain, if I did so again, she would pull it off.

1859.  Bartlett, Dict. Amer., Flat broke, utterly bankrupt, entirely out of money.

  † 3.  Directly, exactly. With respect to the quarter of the heavens: Due. Flat against: lit. and fig. directly contrary to. Cf. DEAD adv. 3.

1531.  Tindale, Exp. John (1537), 28. When the Sonne is flat sowth.

1538.  Leland, Itin., IV. 54. Then Porte Crokerton flat Est, so caullid of the Suburbe that joynith hard to it.

1562.  Cooper, Answ. Priv. Masse, 80 b. Christes wordes and institution is so flat agaynste you, as you [etc.].

1653–4.  Whitelocke, Jrnl. Swed. Emb. (1772), I. 123. The wind continued flatt and high against Whitelocke’s course.

  4.  (To sit) flat down: plump on the ground.

1852.  Mrs. Stowe, Uncle Tom’s C., xxviii. ‘O, don’t take ’em away, please!’ she said; and, sitting flat down on the floor, and putting her apron over her head, she began to sob vehemently.

  C.  absol. and sb.³

  1.  absol. (quasi-sb.) That which is flat. On the flat: on paper or canvas; on a smooth surface, as opposed to in relief. From the flat: from a painting or drawing on paper, canvas, etc. (opposed to from the round).

1862.  J. C. Robinson, Ital. Sculpt., 59–60. Luca having, simultaneously with his enamelled terra-cotta sculptures, also practised painting in the same vehicle on the flat; or, in other words, the art of Majolica painting.

1884.  Cassell’s Fam. Mag., March, 216/1. Occupied in shading in chalk from the flat.

1885.  G. Allen, Babylon, v. A lad of that position in life to go and model a composition in relief from an engraving on the flat, and to do it well, too!

  b.  The flat surface or portion (of anything); esp. the broad surface (of a blade) as opposed to the edge; also, the inside of the open hand, etc.

  Sometimes treated as a sb. admitting of a plural, as ‘with the flats of their swords’; but flat is more usual.

c. 1374.  Chaucer, Troylus, IV. 899 (927). Beth rather to hym cause of flat than egge.

1470–65.  Malory, Arthur, XVI. viii. Syre Bors drewe his helme soo strongly that he rente hit fro his hede, and gafe hym grete strokes with the flatte of his swerd vpon the vysage, and bad hym yelde hym or he shold slee hym.

1616.  Bacon, Sylva, § 145. The Strings of a Lute, or Violl, or Virginalls, doe giue a far greater Sound, by reason of the Knot, and Board, and Concaue vnderneath, than if there were nothing but onely the Flat of a Board, without that Hollow and Knot, to let in the Vpper Aire into the Lower.

1671.  Grew, Anat. Plants, I. i. § 16. This Cuticle is not only spread upon the Convex of the Lobes, but also on their Flats, where they are contiguous.

1719.  De Foe, Crusoe (1840), I. iv. 69. On the flat of the green, just before this hollow place, I resolved to pitch my tent.

1737.  W. Snelgrave, Guinea & Stave Trade (1734), 258. He gave me a slight blow on the Shoulder, with the flat of his Cutlace.

1779.  Forrest, Voy. N. Guinea, 77. An island of middling height, flat atop; or rather like the flat of a plate turned bottom up.

1816.  Keatinge, Trav. (1817), II. 264. The breast, loins, flat of the neck, some best of the breeching, and between the elbows; this is called fino.

1828.  Scott, F. M. Perth, iii. ‘Nay, hang me if I bid you farewell, man,’ said Simon, striking the flat of his hand against that which the armourer expanded towards him.

1833.  Regul. Instr. Cavalry, I. 47. The flat of the thigh to the saddle.

1861.  Dickens, Gt. Expect., xlvi. Here’s old Bill Barley on the flat of his back, by the Lord. Lying on the flat of his back, like a drifting old dead flounder, here’s your old Bill Barley, bless your eyes.

1885.  Manch. Exam., 23 June, 5/3. The military … cleared the piazza with the flats of their swords.

  c.  Level country. In Horse-racing: level ground without hedges or ditches; cf. flat-race; also, the level piece of turf at the end of some race-courses. Hence gen. The race-course.

1826.  J. Wilson, Noct. Ambr., Wks. 1855, I. 180. Sic a lang-backed, short-thee’d, sinewy and muscular, hap-and-stap-jump o’ a bouncin body as that man o’ hers, wi’ the swarthy face and head harlequinaddin on the Pan’s-pipes, could never hae been bred and born on the flat.

1847.  G. H. H. Oliphant, Law conc. Horses, etc., App. 278. A. F. Across the Flat 1 M. 2 Fur. 24 Yds.

1877.  Ouida, Puck, ix. And why should your young lordling, who spends all his patrimony on ‘yearlings’, and all his time on the ‘flat,’ approximate so closely in tone and aspect and countenance to the bookmakers, and blacklegs, and trainers, and jockeys, who between them contrive to rob and to ruin him?

1886.  Earl of Suffolk, etc., Racing (Badm. Libr.), 273. In steeple-chases, hurdle races, and on the flat, Mr. Arthur Coventry has alike distinguished himself.

1892.  J. Kent, Racing Life C. Bentinck, ii. 48. He will win, and easily enough too, unless a crow flies down his throat as he comes across the flat.

  2.  A horizontal plane; a level as opposed to a slope. † On the flat of: on the level or plane of. † Of a flat; on the same flat: on the same level or plane.

1605.  Bacon, Adv. Learn., I. v. § 5. 24. No perfect discouerie can bee made vppon a flatte, or a leuell.

1607.  Chapman, Bussy d’Ambois, Plays, 1873, II. 3.

1626.  Bacon, Sylva, § 805. It were good to trie that Exposing of Flesh, or Fish, both vpon a Stake of Wood, some height aboue the Earth, and vpon the Flat of the Earth.

1636.  Massinger, Bashf. Lover, III. i.

1650.  Trapp, Clavis, III. 17. As the Jews conceive, for the facilitating of their march the cloud levelled mountains, raised vallies, and laid all of a flat; that is, burnt up bushes, smoothed rocks, and made all plain, &c.

1791.  Bentham, Panopt., I. 155. In ventilation, much depends upon the form of the ground. A declivity is in this point of view preferable by far to a dead flat.

1822.  T. Strangeways, Mosquito Shore, 28. This high eminence has a flat at top of about 1500 acres, on which one cannot land but by two places easy to guard.

  b.  Sometimes opposed to fall.

1645.  Fuller, Good Th. in Bad T. (1841), 68. Either on the flat of an ordinary temper, or in the fall of an extraordinary temptation, we lose the view thereof.

1887.  Ruskin, Præterita, II. ii. 60. Its gentle incline attained by some three inches of fall to a foot of flat.

  † c.  A geometrical plane, irrespective of position; an even surface.

1624.  Wotton, Archit., II. 83. It comes neere an Artificiall Miracle; to make diuerse distinct Eminences appeare vpon a Flat, by force of Shadowes, and yet the Shadowes themselues not to appeare.

1659.  Moxon, Tutor Astron., v. (1686), 137. A Plain in Dyalling is that flat whereon a Dyal is discribed.

1674.  N. Fairfax, A Treatise of the Bulk and Selvedge of the World, 69. Whatsoever moves as much in a flat as it can for the earths rim, we reckon to have moved in a flat altogether.

  † d.  A plane figure. Obs. rare.

1674.  Jeake, A Compleat Body of Arithmetick (1696), 175. Those Superficial Figures called Like Flats, whether Triangular, Quadrangular, or otherwise, are such Plain Homogeneal Superficies, as bear a certain Proportion in their Sides unto each other.

  3.  Building. a. The horizontal part of a roof, usually covered with lead.

1842.  Brande, Dict. Sc. Lit. & Art, Flat. In Architecture, that part in the covering of a house of lead or other metal which is laid horizontal.

1855.  Act 18–19 Vict., c. 122 § 17. Fifteen inches above the highest part of any flat or gutter.

  † b.  A landing on a stair-case; also, the ‘tread’ of a stair.

1730.  A. Gordon, Maffei’s Amphith., 290. We have a Stair of 20 Steps, interrupted by a Flat.

1793.  Smeaton, Edystone L., § 88. There was but one flat or tread of a step above the center of the house.

  4.  Mining. a. A horizontal bed or stratum of coal, stone, etc.; a horizontal vein of metal, or a lateral extension of a vein.

1747.  Hooson, Miner’s Dict., The Flat always lies on that Side of the Vein which Faces the Water.

1793.  Smeaton, Edystone L., § 108. When the merchantable beds are cleared of the cap, the quarry-men proceed to cross-cut the large flats, which are laid bare, with wedges.

1881.  Raymond, Mining Gloss., Flat. A horizontal vein or ore-deposit auxiliary to a main vein; also any horizontal portion of a vein elsewhere not horizontal.

1883.  Gresley, Gloss. Coal Mining, Flats, subterraneous beds or sheets of trap rock or whin.

1886.  G. A. Lebour, Geol. Northumb. & Durh. (ed. 2), 62. Those valuable lateral extensions of lead-veins called ‘flats.’

  b.  (See quots.)

1846.  Brockett, N. C. Words (ed. 3), Flatt, in a coal mine, the situation where the horses take the coal tubs from the putters.

1883.  Gresley, Gloss. Coal Mining, Flat, a district or set of stalls separated by faults, old workings, or barriers of solid coal.

1892.  Northumbld. Gloss., Flat, the part of a screen at a pit where the coals rest, and are cleaned before being put into the waggon.

  5.  A piece of level ground; a level expanse; a stretch of country without hills, a plain; the low ground through which a river flows.

1296.  Newminster Cartul. (1878), 144. Stokwelflatte … Seruonreflatte.

c. 1340.  Sir Gawayne and the Green Knight, 507. Falleȝ vpon fayre flat.

a. 1400[?].  in Cartul. Abb. de Seleby (Yorks. Rec. Ser.), II. 42. Xij seliones jacentes in iiij locis sive flattes.

1510.  in Yorksh. Archæol. Jrnl., VII. 59, note. One parcel of land called Peeston’s flatt.

1602.  Shaks., Ham., V. i. 275.

1695.  Blackmore, Prince Arthur, I. 200.

1759.  B. Martin, Nat. Hist. Eng., I. 45. At the first Entrance into this Peninsula, there lies a large Flat of barren, heathy Ground.

1852.  Thackeray, Esmond, I. iii. Beyond that a large pleasant green flat, where the village of Castlewood stood.

1877.  A. B. Edwards, Up Nile, viii. 199. The river widens away before us; the flats are green on either side; the mountains are pierced with terraces of rock-cut tombs.

  fig.  1685.  Dryden, Pref. 2nd Misc., Wks. 1800, III. 49. Milton’s Paradise Lost is admirable; but am I therefore bound to maintain, that there are no flats amongst his elevations, when ’tis evident he creeps along sometimes, for above an hundred lines together?

18[?].  De Quincey, Convers., Wks. 1863, XIII. 176. Very often it [conversation] sinks into flats of insipidity through mere accident.

1878.  Morley, Vauvenargues, Crit. Misc., 26. While abstaining as rigorously as Vauvenargues everywhere does from grotesque and extravagant traits, avoid equally the vice of presenting the mere bald and sterile flats of character, which he that runs may read.

  b.  A tract of low-lying marshy land; a swamp.

1610.  Shaks., Temp. II. ii. 1.

1670.  Milton, Hist. Eng., II. 53. The Romans following them through bogs and dangerous flats, hazarded the loss of all.

1821.  Earl Dudley, Lett., 27 Nov. (1840), 294. Completely to enjoy them one should be able to attach to them those associations which are the result of protracted residence, which endear to men even the flats and swamps of Holland; but which, superadded to that interest which naturally belongs to fine country, occasion some of the strongest and most delightful feelings of the human heart.

1859.  J. D. Burn, Autobiog. Beggar Boy, 99. After having crossed one of the Cambridgeshire flats or marshes, I observed something like a sign-board fixed on the gable-end of a small cottage; the inscription on this board, instead of being ‘Licensed to retail tea and tobacco,’ was, ‘Therefore the name of this place is called Golgotha unto this day.’

  c.  Australian. (See quot. 1869.)

1869.  R. B. Smyth, Gold Fields of Victoria, 611. Flat—A low even tract of land, generally occurring where creeks unite, over which are spread many strata of sand and gravel, with the usual rich auriferous drift immediately overlying the bed-rock.

1874.  Walch, Head over Heels, 79. Every man on the flat left his claim.

1879.  D. M. Wallace, Australas., iv. 68. In the gold districts such deposits form ‘flats,’ and are always subsequent to the latest lava-flows.

  6.  Chiefly pl. A nearly level tract, over which the tide flows, or which is covered by shallow water; a shallow, shoal.

1550.  J. Coke, Eng. & Fr. Heralds (1877), § 155. 102. The sea is onely on the one syde of Fraunce, full of flattes and daungers.

1595.  Shaks., John, V. vi. 40. Passing these Flats, are taken by the Tide.

1628.  Digby, Voy. Medit. (1868), 94. Hauing a good pilote in euery shippe, wee shaped our course to gett ouer the flattes into the riuer of Thames.

1678.  R. L’Estrange, Seneca’s Mor. (1702), 477. When we have scap’d so many Rocks and Flatts, Thunder, and Storms, what’s the Fruit of all our Labour, and Terrour?

1772–84.  Cook, Voy. (1790), IV. 1408. Steering by the direction of our two pilots, for the widest space between those isles, we were insensibly drawn upon a large flat, upon which lay innumerable rocks of coral, below the surface of the sea.

1813.  J. Thomson, Lect. Inflam., 621. The boat grounded on the flats a little to the east of the pier.

1867.  Smyth, Sailor’s Word-bk., Flat … a shallow over which the tide flows…. If less than three fathoms, it is called shoal or shallow.

  fig.  1644.  Milton, Educ., 2. They having but newly left those Grammatick flats & shallows where they stuck unreasonably to learn a few words with lamentable construction.

  7.  Agric. † a. One of the larger portions into which the common field was divided; a square furlong.

1523.  Fitzherb., Surv., 2. If they [the acres] lye by great flattes or furlonges in the commyn feldes, it is at the lordes pleasure to enclose them and kepe them in tyllage or pasture, so that no nother man haue commyn therin.

1641.  H. Best, Rural Economy in Yorkshire in 1641 (Surtees), 43. In fower dayes the said dozen shearers finished the saide flatte, and there is in it 14 through landes and two gares.

1688.  R. Holme, Armoury, II. ii. § 37. 3. Ridges, Butts, Flats, Stitches or small Butts, Pikes.

1885.  Quarterly Review, CLIX. 325. Theoretically each flat was a square of 40 poles, containing 10 acres; in practice every variety of shape and admeasurement was found.

  † b.  A tract of arable land; a cornfield. Obs.

1513.  Douglas, Æneis, II. vii (vi). 13.

  c.  dial. (See quots.)

1879.  Miss Jackson, Shropsh. Word-bk., Flats, same as Feerings.

1884.  Chesh. Gloss., Flat, a broad flat bed as distinguished from a narrow rounded butt. We speak of ploughing a field in flats when there is no indication of reens.… A wide space covered by any particular crop is called a flat, as ‘a flat o’ taters.’

  8.  Something broad and thin.

  a.  A thin disc.

1732.  Berkeley, Alciphr., IV. ix. Is it [a Planet] not a round luminous Flat, no bigger than a Sixpence?

  † b.  Chiefly pl. Dice of a shape to fall unfairly when thrown. (Cf. A. 5 b.) Obs.

1545.  Ascham, Toxoph. (Arb.), 54. What false dise vse they? as dise stopped with quicksiluer and heares, dise of a vauntage, flattes, gourdes to chop and chaunge whan they lyste, to lette the trew dise fall vnder the table, and so take vp the false.

1664.  J. Wilson, Cheats, IV. i. Dram. Wks. (1874), 67. Taught you the use of Uphills, Down-hills and, Petars?—The Wax’d, the Grav’d, the Slipt, the Goad, the Fullam, the Flat, the Bristle, the Bar.

1711.  Puckle, Club, 21. Considering the combination of Gamesters, their tricks to make their bubbles drunk, very drunk, and then to put upon them, the doctors; the fulloms; loaded dice; flats; bars; cuts; high-slipped; low-slipped; chain-dice; &c.

  c.  slang, in pl. Playing-cards. Cf. BROAD sb. 6.

1812.  J. H. Vaux, Flash Dict., Flats, a cant name for playing cards.

1821.  D. Haggart, Life, 56. We met in with Tom Wilson, alias Tommy Twenty, a mush toper feeker, and another cove, whose name I did not know; and we played at flats in a budging crib, in the Shirra’ Brae, till next morning.

  d.  Cotton-spinning. (See quot. 1874.)

1851.  L. D. B. Gordon, in Art Jrnl. Illustr. Catal., p. iv**/2. The filaments, after emerging from the flats, lie in nearly parallel lines among the card teeth of the drum.

1874.  Knight, Dict. Mech., I. 878/1. Flat.… (Carding.) A strip of wood clothed with bent teeth, and placed above the large cylinder of a carding-machine.

  e.  In a breech-loading gun: The piece of metal projecting from the breech to support the barrel.

1881.  Greener, Gun, 230. When the barrels are for breech-loaders, the flats are formed on the undersides of the breech-ends.

  f.  A flat strip of wood inserted under the inner edge of a picture-frame and projecting beyond it; usually gilded. Called also MAT.

1886.  W. G. Rawlinson, The Turner Drawings, in 19th Cent., XIX. March, 400. There are several small drawings of Turner’s in the present Exhibition greatly injured by the very modern-looking deep gold ‘flats’ brought close up to them.

  g.  In various uses (see quots.).

1688.  R. Holme, Armoury, II. 464/2. The several ways Women wear Hair about their Faces…. In falls or flats, when the hair hangs loose down about the shoulders, having nothing to tie it up.

1847.  Halliwell, Flats, small white fresh-water fish, as roach, etc.

1858.  Simmonds, Dict. Trade, Flat … a rough piece of bone for a button mould.

1874.  Knight, Dict. Mech., I. 878/1. Flat.… A surface of size over gilding.

1888.  Lockwood’s Dict. Terms Mech. Engin., Flats, Flat Bar Iron.

1893.  Farmer, Slang, Flats, base money.

  9.  Something broad and shallow.

  a.  A broad, flat-bottomed boat.

1749.  W. Douglass, Summary (1755), I. 461. A large scow or flat, to carry persons, cattle, and goods, with a canoe-tender.

1801.  Nelson, in A. Duncan, Life (1806), 194. The enemy’s vessels, brigs, and flats (lugger-rigged), and a schooner, twenty-four in number, were this morning at daylight, anchored in a line in the front of Boulogne…. Three of the flats and a brig were sunk; and in the course of the morning, six were on shore, evidently much damaged.

1867.  Smyth, Sailor’s Word-bk., Flats … lighters used in river navigation, and very flat-floored boats for landing troops.

1879.  F. Pollok, Sport Brit. Burmah, I. 21. I was not long detained at Rangoon, but went up in the first Government steamer and flat to Prome, where the gallant Madras Sappers and Miners were then stationed.

  b.  A broad, shallow basket used for packing produce for the market. Cf. A 5 e.

1640.  in Entick, London, II. 181. For Packs, trusses, flats, or maunds, per piece 0 8d.

1840.  J. T. Hewlett, Peter Priggins, in New Monthly Mag., LIX. 267. Wheeling a barrow with a basket in it resembling those which at Fire-cum-Fume they call butter-flats.

1886.  Daily News, 4 Dec., 5/4. Watercress … costs the hawker at the rate of from 16s. to 17s. a flat.

1889.  A. T. Pask, Eyes Thames, 158. The Mimosa comes over in small flat hampers called ‘flats.’

  c.  A shallow two-wheeled hand-cart.

1884.  Chamb. Jrnl., 5 Jan., 9/1. Butchers’ carts, costermongers’ flats, and other light conveyances.

  d.  (See quots.)

1791.  Hamilton, Berthollet’s Dyeing, II. II. I. ii. 32. Silk treated with these galls gained in the dye-bath or flat, an increase of weight that compensated the deficiency of weight in the galling.

1804.  Ct. Rumford, in Phil. Trans., XCIV. 178. Proposals have often been made for constructing the broad and shallow vessels (flats), in which brewers cool their wort, of metal, on a supposition that the process of cooling would go on faster in a metallic vessel than in a wooden vessel.

  e.  U.S. = flat-car: see A. 15.

1864.  in Webster.

  f.  Applied to articles of diess. A low shoe or sandal (Irish); a low-crowned hat (U.S.).

1834.  Planché, Brit. Costume, 375. Brogue-uirleaker, that is, flats made of untanned leather, graced their feet, and stockings were deemed a foppery.

1859.  Bartlett, Dict. Amer., Flat, a broad-brimmed, low-crowned, straw hat, worn by women.

1864.  Miss Wetherell, Old Helmet, II. xvi. 269. But you will not wear that flat there?

  10.  Ship-building. a. (see quot. 1867.)

1815.  Falconer’s Dict. Marine (ed. Burney), Flats, in ship-building, the name given to all the timbers in midships.

1867.  Smyth, Sailor’s Word-bk., Flats, all the floor-timbers that have no bevellings in mid-ships, or pertaining to the dead-flat.

1869.  Sir E. J. Reed, Shipbuild., v. 95. In the ‘Great Eastern’ the after part of the ship abaft the stuffing-box bulkhead is strengthened by a large number of horizontal flats extending between the bulkhead and a cast-iron cellular stern-post.

  b.  The partial deck or floor of a particular compartment.

1869.  Sir E. J. Reed, Shipbuild., ix. 177. Iron plates similar to those used in the flats of stoke-holes have been laid on the beams and riveted to them so as to form the surface of the deck.

1893.  Daily News, 3 July, 5/6. Tank room, capstan engine flat, and … the patent fuel space.

  11.  Theat. A part of a scene mounted on a wooden frame which is pushed in horizontally or lowered on to the stage.

1807.  Director, II. 331. The entire assemblage of whigs and drops and flat.

1836–9.  Dickens, Sk. Boz (1850), 259/1. The large dining-room, dismantled of its furniture and ornaments, presented a strange jumble of flats, flies, wings, lamps, bridges, clouds, thunder and lightning, festoons and flowers, daggers and foil, and various other messes in theatrical slang included under the comprehensive name of ‘properties.’

  12.  House-painting. A surface painted without gloss, so as to appear dead: see DEAD a. 13 b. Also the pigment employed for this purpose. Cf. FLATTING. Bastard flat (see quot.).

1823.  Mechanic’s Mag., No. 7. 108. The rooms … were painted with Chinese Flat on walls.

1881.  F. Young, Every man his own Mechanic, § 1591. Bastard Flat is thinned with turpentine and a little oil…. To procure a good flat, it is necessary to have a perfectly even glossy ground, and it should be of the same tint, but a little darker than the finishing flat.

  13.  slang. A person who is easily taken in, and is said to be ‘only half sharp’; a duffer, simpleton. Cf. A. 8. A prime flat (see quot. 1812).

1762.  Goldsm., Nash, Wks. (Globe), 546/2. Sometimes, if the Flat has no money, the Sailor cries, I have more money than any man in the fair, and pulls out his purse of gold, and faith, Not one of you can beg, borrow or steal half this sum in an hour for a guinea.

1812.  J. H. Vaux, Flash Dict., Flat … any person who is found an easy dupe to the designs of the family is said to be a prime flat.

1848.  Thackeray, Van. Fair, x. ‘You wouldn’t be such a flat as to let three thousand a year go out of the family?’

  14.  Music. a. A note lowered half a tone below the natural pitch. b. In musical notation, the sign ♭ which indicates this lowering of the note; a double flat ♭♭ indicates that it must be lowered by two semitones. c. Sharps and flats: the black keys of the keyboard of a piano.

1589.  R. Harvey, Pl. Perc. (1590), 21. It can neuer be goode musicke, that stands all vpon sharpes, and neuer a flat: all diuisions framde with such long discords, and not so much as a concord to end withall, argues a bad eare, and a bungling Artist.

a. 1634.  Randolph, Muses Looking-glasse, IV. v.

1669.  Cokaine, Fun. Elegy T. Pilkington, Poems, 78.

1674.  Playford, Skill Mus., I. iv. 15. I have seen some Songs with four flats.

1694.  Phil. Trans., XVIII. 72. Flats or Half-notes to other Keys do not keep a due or fitting Proportion for that Cliff.

1706.  A. Bedford, Temple Mus., iii. 57. The Seven different Methods of altering their Tunes, by Flats and Sharps placed at the Beginning of a Lesson.

1806.  Callcott, Mus. Gram., v. 57, note. The mark now used for the Flat was originally the letter B.

1834.  Medwin, Angler in Wales, I. 215. Twelve lines in each, of hair and Indian hurl, alternately, like the flats and sharps of a piano.

1872.  H. C. Banister, Music, 7. A Flat, ♭, indicates the lowering of the note to which it is prefixed, one semitone; or, in other words, the substitution of the note one semitone lower, for the original note.

  d.  Sharps and flats: used punningly for (a) sharpers and their victims; (b) recourse to weapons.

  (a)  1800.  Sporting Mag., XVII. Oct., 37/1. There are sharps and flats in Paris as well as in London.

1825.  C. M. Westmacott, Eng. Spy, I. 368. That emporium for sharps and flats, famed Tattersall’s.

  (b)  1818.  Scott, Hrt. Midl., xxx. I have known many a pretty lad cut short in his first summer upon the road, because he was something hasty with his flats and sharps.

  15.  Short for flat-racer.

1811.  Sporting Mag., XXXVIII. July, 168/1. He had one of the finest flats in the world in training.

  16.  U.S. colloq. To give the flat: to give a flat refusal (to a suitor). (Cf. A 6.)

1859.  in Bartlett, Dict. Amer.

  17.  attrib. and Comb., as flat-like adj.; flat-catcher, one who takes in simpletons; a swindler; also used of a horse; so flat-catching vbl. sb.

1821.  Moncrieff, Tom & Jerry, I. vi. (1828), 22. Well, Master Gull’em, do you think we shall get the *flat-catcher [a horse] off to-day?

1841.  Blackw. Mag., L. Aug., 302. Buttoners are those accomplices of thimbleriggers, and other gamblers of the fairs and race courses, whose duty it is to act as flat-catchers or decoys, by personating flats.

1864.  Lond. Rev., 18 June, 643/2. ‘The Bobby’ or chinked-back horse, is another favourite flat-catcher.

1821.  Egan, Tom & Jerry, 346. The no-pinned hero, on being elevated, gave, as a toast, ‘Success to *FLAT-catching.’

1813.  Sporting Mag., XLII. April, 24/2. A fine opportunity of acquiring another sort of classical language, technically termed slang, and if not to be found in the library of a proctor, is a necessary dialect for a modern young man of fashion, in whom it would appear degrading and *flat-like to appear at a mill, a hanck, or a dog-fight, without so elegant an acquirement.