lacking the expected range or depth; not designed to give an illusion or depth
<adj.all> a film with two-dimensional characters a flat two-dimensional painting
not reflecting light; not glossy
<adj.all> flat wall paint a photograph with a matte finish
commercially inactive
<adj.all> flat sales for the month prices remained flat a flat market
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.
A great tobacco taker too, -- that's flat. --Marston.
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.
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. [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.
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. [Broker's Cant]
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: (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.
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. [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.
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.
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.
Residential building was relatively flat in June compared with May.
Hormel's per-share earnings have been about flat at around $1 a share for the past three years, with meat-processing losses imposing an annual drag of 25 cents to 50 cents a share.
Over the last few years it has generated very strong growth in Australia while the economy has been flat on its back.
A new study by Information Resources Inc., a Chicago-based marketing research company, indicates that aspirin sales were flat in February and fell slightly in March, the last months the survey covered.
Demand is expected to remain flat, but analysts said the numbers don't presage an industry recession.
The Xerox 5042 has a slanted edge and a hinged cover that allow a book or other bound material to be laid flat without squashing or stretching the binding.
European tractor sales are projected to fall to 106,000 units in 1994, down from 181,000 in 1990. Industry-wide sales of construction equipment are flat to lower.
Instead of a flat 10% penalty on the amount due, a new law substitutes penalties ranging from 2% to 10%, depending on how late the payment is made.
The dividend is expected to be maintained. Another round of write-downs on property and the Channel Tunnel contract is thought to have kept BICC's pre-tax profit flat at about Pounds 80m last year.
The shares fell 39 to 453p, a slide of around 8 per cent, with 7.8m traded. Despite increased profits, reduced gearing and an increased dividend, underlying profits were flat once gains from currency shifts and acquisitions had been stripped out.
BTR said new contracts at Continental PET contributed to the advance. However, operating profits in Asia were flat, at ADollars 117.3m against ADollars 118.6m.
Even so, chill-fresh dishes conceived in central kitchens for network distribution tend to fall flat.
But also, some of Mr. Nishi's theories have fallen flat in practice.
The flat had been bought earlier the same day for Pounds 120,000. In April 1992 Mortgage Express obtained an order for possession.
It is discipline in the equality of men _ for all men are equal before fish." From the flat high desert of western Wyoming a traveler looks far back over his shoulder to see distant white clouds high in the northeastern sky.
But when the right technology is combined with a business model that has demonstrated success through continued growth in markets, sales and profits, you have a sound base on which to develop an indigenous flat panel display industry.
John E. Jacobson, a steel economist, estimates that since 1981 bar prices have fallen every year except 1987, when they were flat compared with 1986.
While American PC sales have averaged roughly 25% annual growth since 1984 and West European sales a whopping 40%, Japanese sales were flat for most of that time.
Construction spending in August is thought to have increased a modest 0.2% after July's flat reading.
In the US, its largest market, the company expects sales to remain flat for the year at Dollars 4.3bn. Suddenly, the world seems to be ganging up on video game makers.
It is simply too diffuse to grip the reader, with overly detailed descriptions of military hardware, meandering pace and Ng's flat narration combining to bog the story down.
Sales were about flat with $342.8 million last year.
"I think they're going to stay fairly flat for the next several months, and then we'll see some increase by the end of the year, possibly as high as 11%," said John Teutsch, president of the Mortgage Bankers Association.
In the Pennzoil case, the strategy fell flat.
Volume remained almost flat, at 250m shares against 244m. Advances led declines by 868 to 179, with 107 issues unchanged.
But the consensus view, as determined by MMS International, a unit of McGraw-Hill Inc., New York, holds that industrial production remained flat for the month.
First-half profits of Ajinomoto, Japan's leading food manufacturing company, were hit by the hot summer weather, the discounting boom and increased competition from imported foods due to the higher yen. Sales were flat at Y298.1bn (Dollars 3.07bn).
But it could gain assent to essentially flat wages through to 1996. To lock the unions into such restraint the government will probably have to jettison part of its planned reform of the overtly rigid labour laws.
The swing that goes with it is a horizontal affair usually described as "sweeping the dishes off the table," and results in a flat, hard shot.
Stocks of Spanish companies have been relatively flat for much of the year.