flat – English adjective declension

English adjective forms of flat

Adjective: flat

Comparison Forms

Synthetic

Comparativeflatter
Superlativeflattest

Perifrastic

Sample Sentences

  • The land around here is flat.
  • a flat roof
  • The surface of the mirror must be completely flat.
  • The carpet isn't properly flat in that corner.
  • She has quite a flat face.
  • The face which emerged was not reassuring. It was blunt and grey, the nose springing thick and flat from high on the frontal bone of the forehead, whilst his eyes were narrow slits of dark in a tight bandage of tissue. […]. [1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 17, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC:]
  • This early slowdown is one piece of a broader evolutionary trend known as gracilization, the tendency for modern humans to become more delicate in form. Our bones are thinner, our muscles smaller, and our faces flatter than those of earlier hominins. [2025 November 27, Tibi Puiu, “This Is Why Modern Human Faces Look So Different From Neanderthals”, in ZME Science, archived from the original on 23 Feb 2026:]
  • Near-synonym: flat-chested
  • That girl is completely flat on both sides.
  • The exchange rate has been flat for several weeks.
  • Sales have been flat all year, and we've barely broken even.
  • a flat fee
  • flat rates
  • a flat fare on public transport
  • He delivered the speech in a flat tone.
  • The walls were painted a flat gray.
  • The party was a bit flat.
  • The market is flat today as most traders are on holiday.
  • The dialogue in your screenplay is flat — you need to make it more exciting.
  • February 16, 1833, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Table Talk
  • A large part of the work is, to me, very flat.
  • How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable / Seem to me all the uses of this world. [c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene ii]:]
  • The author added a chapter to flesh out the book's flatter characters.
  • Your A string is flat.
  • His claim was in flat contradiction to experimental results.
  • I'm not going to the party and that's flat.
  • Wag[ner]. Vilaine, call me Maiſter Wagner, and let thy left eye be diametarily fixt vpon my right heele, with quaſi veſtigias nostras inſistere [as if to follow in our footsteps]. / Clo[wn]: God forgiue me, he ſpeakes Dutch fuſtian: / well, Ile folow him, Ile ſerue him, thats flat. [1589–1592 (date written), Ch[ristopher] Marl[owe], The Tragicall History of D. Faustus. […], London: […] V[alentine] S[immes] for Thomas Bushell, published 1604, →OCLC, signature [B4], recto:]
  • SECOND WATCH. Marry, that he had received a thousand ducats of Don John for accusing the Lady Hero wrongfully.
  • DOGBERRY. Flat burglary as ever was committed [1598–1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, “Much Adoe about Nothing”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene ii]:]
  • A great Tobacco taker too, thats flat. [1602, John Marston, Antonio and Mellida, Malone Society Reprint, 1921, Act I, lines 324-326, He is made like a tilting staffe; and lookes For all the world like an ore-rosted pigge]
  • Many flat adverbs, as in 'run fast', 'buy cheap', etc. are from Old English.
  • He finished the race in a flat four minutes.
  • We either burns the old brooms, or, if we can, we sells ’em for a ha’penny to some other boy, if he’s flat enough to buy ’em. [1851, Henry Mayhew, London Labour and the London Poor, published 1861:]

Adjectives inflected like flat

WET, fat, fit, hot, wet, squat, flat, phat,

Etymology

1. Etymology tree
2. Proto-Germanic *flataz
3. Old Norse flatrbor.
4. Middle English flat
5. English flat
6. From Middle English flat, a borrowing from Old Norse flatr (compare Norwegian and Swedish flat, Danish flad), from Proto-Germanic *flataz, from Proto-Indo-European *pleth₂- (“flat”); akin to Saterland Frisian flot (“smooth”), German Flöz (“a geological layer”), Ancient Greek πλατύς (platús), Latvian plats, Sanskrit प्रथस् (prathas, “extension”). Doublet of plat and pleyt.
7. The noun is from Middle English flat (“level piece of ground, flat edge of a weapon”), from the adjective.
8. The algebraic sense was coined by Serre in a 1956 paper, originally as French plat. See: Swedish Adjectives 'flat', French Adjectives 'plat'.

Verbs referencing "flat"

German Adjectives platt.