Talk:flat

battery

Missing the sense of a "flat battery". 86.153.8.118 14:07, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Done. Pingku 18:15, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

I wonder whether anyone ever uses 'flat' to mean 'flat battery'? Probably not for cars due to the possibility of confusion with 'flat tyre/tire' but maybe in other instances? I couldn't find anything after a brief search though. --Overlordnat1 (talk) 17:36, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

?

A platform on a wheel, upon which emblematic designs etc. are carried in processions.<pic?220.136.226.218 09:30, 13 July 2015 (UTC)

Missing noun sense?

Ch1908 has "a tract covered by shallow water", which is more specific than our "area of level ground". Equinox ◑ 05:18, 20 August 2019 (UTC)

Perhaps our existing sense should simply be expanded to say "...sometimes covered with water" (or "often..."?). This is the sense used in "salt flats" and "tidal flats" and "mud flats" and google books:"flood flats", I gather?
Incidentally, the sense "a wide, shallow container" may need to be broadened a bit since I think that at least in American English a pallet could be referred to as a flat (or is this covered by another sense?). (Further incidentally, pallet seems to have been edited by that user who liked to paste the US DOD's definitions of common words s separate "military" definitions of them...) - -sche (discuss) 05:46, 20 August 2019 (UTC)

Oh yeah, that takes me back to an old job in logistics. "Flats" are definitely a shipping thing here too (UK). Equinox ◑ 05:50, 20 August 2019 (UTC)

exactly; precisely [after a measurement of time]

exactly; precisely [after a measurement of time] Apparently that's the only possible position --Backinstadiums (talk) 16:36, 27 November 2020 (UTC)

RFV discussion: February–March 2021

The following discussion has been moved from Wiktionary:Requests for verification (permalink).

This discussion is no longer live and is left here as an archive. Please do not modify this conversation, but feel free to discuss its conclusions.

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flat

RFV adv. sense

(with units of time, distance, etc) Not exceeding.

1996, Jon Byrell, Lairs, Urgers and Coat-Tuggers, Sydney: Ironbark, page 186:

Dan Patch clocked a scorching 1:55.5 flat.

He can run a mile in four minutes flat.

Not to be confused with other timing-related senses that are believed to exist. See Wiktionary:Tea_room/2021/February#flat_(2). Because of the possible difficulty of finding citations that incontrovertibly express this meaning as opposed to others, I would personally be happy if people just said that they knew this sense. Any better (least ambiguous possible) examples would also be useful. Mihia (talk) 01:48, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

If someone promises to teach me how to do something “in X minutes flat”,^[1][2][3] I take that as meaning that afterwards I’ll be able to pull it off in “just X minutes”. Such a promise is not a binding contract; it is used loosely, but, like the adverb just modifying a measure, it implies that the amount is close to, but not over, the specified measure. I suppose that in many cases “X miles flat”^[4] likewise means “just X miles” or “a mere X miles”, but I did not find three unambiguous attestations.  --Lambiam 13:07, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

I'm actually more sceptical of the "Used to express impressiveness of performance." "I got to work in 20 minutes flat!" sense, which I've added an RFV tag to. I don't think that's a separate sense from the other two; I don't think "[did X in] twenty minutes flat" and "[did X in] four minutes flat" are using 2-3 different senses of "flat". It seems to me that, as the context label admits, "twenty minutes flat" is simply using one of the other 1-2 time senses 'to fewer decimal places'. Probably the "not exceeding" sense is the same thing: "exactly" but with greater tolerance for what constitutes "exactly" X. - -sche (discuss) 21:21, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

Looking at YouTube results for "in 5 minutes flat" I see videos (some under 5 minutes, some over, some almost exactly 5) offering to teach me how to do makeup, revive bread, etc, "in 5 minutes flat", which I would interpret similarly to Lambiam, as meaning I'll be able to do the makeup/etc "in about (or at least no more than approximately) 5 minutes". I wouldn't interpret it as saying it will have to take me all five minutes and be impossible I'll get my own time down to something quicker, but I'm not sure I'd put "not exceeding" as a separate definition-line, since I also see videos on how to do makeup, clean a room, etc "in exactly 15 minutes" which are in practice surely similarly inexact. I'm not sure how to word the one sense I suspect the entry's three current senses may be. "Exactly (to some contextually determined level of precision or imprecision)."? Or just "exactly" and consider that variation in level of precision with which people use words is extralexical?
Chuck's example in the Tea Room that "When I heard that, I was downstairs in 10 seconds flat doesn't literally mean the speaker was downstairs in 10.000 seconds" is true but illustrates, I think, that the phenomenon is not that "flat" means "impressively" or "not exceeding" per se, but that people are imprecise, since you can say you were downstairs google books:"in ten seconds straight", or "I was downstairs a second later" or "in an instant" (which you did not, in fact, teleport instantaneously), etc. - -sche (discuss) 21:43, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

Searching Google Books, I find someone threatening someone else google books:"if you aren't out of that bed and downstairs in exactly five minutes", where I doubt the threatener would be angry that the person is early if they come downstairs after only four minutes and fifty-one seconds rather than "exactly" five: five is the limit not to be exceeded, but going under is OK, similar to what 2A02 was saying in the Tea Room. But I'm not convinced that this means "exactly" needs to be defined as "not exceeding, but potentially less than", I think it may just be a phenomenon of how senses are used. I'm not sure, though... - -sche (discuss) 21:55, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

I am sure that there is an "exact" sense in sports (to within any reasonable measurement accuracy; obviously nothing is "exact" if you go to arbitrary d.p.). For example, in the context where timings are measured to one-hundredth of a second, "four minutes flat" really does mean 4:00.00, and does not in itself carry any connotation that it is a fast time. The other senses if any, and how many overall there are, are hazier to me, but "I got to work in 20 minutes flat" to me does typically carry a connotation that it is a fast time, and does not typically mean 20:00.00 as opposed to 20:00.01. Is there any instance of a non-sports-type-exact sense where the speaker is not expressing that it was a fast or good time? Mihia (talk) 21:59, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

Hmm, let me turn the question around: is there any instance where "twenty minutes flat" is not expressing that "twenty minutes" is how much time they took, relative to whatever (often low!) level of exactness is needed in context? In sports, that level of precision may be centiseconds (and yet, not attoseconds), but in water-cooler conversations with accounting-office colleagues about how fast I got to work, I think it may be that the required level of exactness is less, rather than that the sense of the word "flat" is different. People may not regularly see a need to specify that they did something in "X minutes flat" or "X minutes exactly" or "X minutes straight" unless they're emphasizing that it was a "fast or good time", but they use all those words, and I'm not sure that means also those words need an imprecise meaning, does it? Indeed, can't we use bare measurements the same way, like "I got up, threw on my clothes, scarfed down a protein shake and got out the door and down to work in twenty minutes" even when it was actually 19:16 or 20:08 or something, especially if you're contrasting it with how it might normally take an hour? - -sche (discuss) 22:48, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

I think it is useful to look at the difference between "I got to work in 20 minutes" and "I got to work in 20 minutes flat". What is the word "flat" actually adding? To me, it is less about exactness and more about emphasising that it is a fast time, possibly in combination with the idea of "not exceeding". Now compare with the sporting sense of "four minutes flat", where "flat" has nothing to do with its being a fast time (it might even be a slow time), and everything to do with exactness. On this basis I feel there is a distinction, but I couldn't say definitely that all this could not be rolled into one sense with appropriate wording. Mihia (talk) 22:58, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

Hmm, fair points. I'm not sure whether combining the 3 senses into 1 or into 2 ("exact" and the 'emphasizing fastness' sense + explanation that the stated time would be approximate) would be best, though looking at other dictionaries it's noticeable that none seem to have sports-precision-"exactly" and emphasis-"exactly" as different senses: Dictionary.com, Cambridge, Collins and The Free Dictionary have "exactly" as their only specifically time-related definition (though they also have senses like "completely, or to the greatest degree possible" for things like "turned him down flat") with examples like "She ran around the track in two minutes flat" and "We managed to get to the station in five minutes flat" which suggest they think "exactly" covers both sports use and non-sports use. (Merriam-Webster does not have any specifically time-related adverb sense, although they have "in a flat manner" and have "exact" as a sense of the adjective.) Lexico has only the "emphasis" sense: "After a phrase expressing a period of time to emphasize how quickly something can be done or has been done." MacMillan combines them in a way that broadly matches what I might expect, though it would fail to cover cases of a runner's "four minutes flat" being a slow time: "exactly: used for emphasizing how quickly something is done: I fell asleep in five seconds flat!" I do think "not exceeding" isn't a separate sense, in any case, but just an implication. - -sche (discuss) 18:49, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

The emphatic sense is also present in N seconds no less,^[5][6][7] in which no less literally means “not exceeding”, but clearly serves to signal awe.  --Lambiam 08:51, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

RFV-resolved. After thinking about this discussion, I have combined the two challenged senses into one with a non-gloss definition of "emphasizing the smallness of the measurement". Kiwima (talk) 19:22, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

@Kiwima: A couple of comments. I am mostly (I would say pretty much only) familiar with "flat" used with times. Presently the labels imply that the "exactly" sense is used only with times, while the "emphasize the smallness of the measurement" sense can be used with other dimensions, such as distance. Is this definitely right? If we take @Lambiam's "eight miles flat" example, is this expressing exactness or is it for emphasis? And, if the emphasis sense can exist for e.g. distance, then does it always emphasise smallness? E.g., can I say "I ran a mile flat" to express that a mile is an impressively long distance? (I don't know the answers.) Mihia (talk) 19:44, 27 February 2021 (UTC)

AFAIK, it emphasizes smallness. "I ran a mile flat" would only sound right to me if you were attempting a marathon. Kiwima (talk) 00:17, 9 March 2021 (UTC)

Missing noun sense: appartement?

I'm a bit puzzled that sense of "flat" as being an apartment is not listed here? Nounours77 (talk) 10:04, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

It's there: flat#Noun_2. In general Wiktionray subheadings go page->language->etymology->part_of_speech, so since flat (as in level) and flat (as in apartment) have different etymologies, they aren't listed next to each other. Winthrop23 (talk) 14:48, 11 June 2024 (UTC)