- spread out in a level, straight position, especially against another surface
- Lie flat and breathe deeply.
- They pressed themselves flat against the tunnel wall as the train approached.
- I can't get this material to lie flat.
- (North American English flat out)(informal) in a definite and direct way
- She told me flat she would not speak to me again.
- I made them a reasonable offer but they turned it down flat.
- lower than the correct pitch (= how high or low a note sounds)
- He sings flat all the time.
level
refusing/denying
in music
Word Originadverb Middle English: from Old Norse flatr.
Idioms
See flat in the Oxford Advanced American Dictionaryfall flat
- if a joke, a story, or an event falls flat, it completely fails to make people laugh or to have the effect that was intended
- Without Jem, the whole evening would have fallen flat.
fall flat on your face
- to fall so that you are lying on your front
- to fail completely, usually in an embarrassing way
- His next television venture fell flat on its face.
flat broke
(British English also stony broke)
- (informal) completely broke (= without money)
flat out (informal)
- as fast or as hard as possible
- Workers are working flat out to meet the rise in demand for new cars.
- (especially North American English) in a definite and direct way; completely
- I told him flat out ‘No’.
- It's a 30-year mortgage we just flat out can't handle.
in… flat
- (informal) used with an expression of time to say that something happened or was done very quickly, in no more than the time stated
- They changed the wheel in three minutes flat (= in only three minutes).
lie flat
- (in China) if a person lies flat, they reject the competitive work culture in society and adopt a more relaxed attitude to life, trying to do and spend as little as possible
- Many Chinese youth are ‘lying flat’ to express their frustration with the lack of upward social mobility.
Check pronunciation:
flat