FLATTEN • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Flatten

Add this Dictionary
to your website!
See more options...

/flˈætən/ Listen

verb

Flatten v. t. (past & past part. flattened; pres. part. flattening)

To reduce to an even surface or one approaching evenness; to make flat; to level; to make plane.

To throw down; to bring to the ground; to prostrate; hence, to depress; to deject; to dispirit.

To make vapid or insipid; to render stale.

(Mus.) To lower the pitch of; to cause to sound less sharp; to let fall from the pitch.

To flatten a sail (Naut.), to set it more nearly fore-and-aft of the vessel.

Flattening oven, in glass making, a heated chamber in which split glass cylinders are flattened for window glass.

Flatten v. i. To become or grow flat, even, depressed, dull, vapid, spiritless, or depressed below pitch.

See images of 'Flatten'

Etymology of 'Flatten'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

Share |

"Flatten" Quotes from Famous Books

... contracting Powers renounce the use of bullets which expand or flatten easily in the human body, such as bullets with a hard casing, which does not entirely cover the core, ...

— Letters To "The Times" Upon War And Neutrality (1881-1920) • Thomas Erskine Holland

... they got under the lee of the island, they found themselves in smoother water, though from time to time squalls came over and threatened to flatten the great lugsail ...

— Macleod of Dare • William Black

... Jacob Leuthold, their intrepid guide, flinging down everything which could embarrass his movements, stretched his alpenstock over the ridge as a grappling pole, and, trampling the snow as he went, so as to flatten his giddy path for those who were to follow, was in a moment on the top. To so steep an apex does this famous peak narrow, that but one person can stand on the summit at a time, nor was even this possible till the snow was beaten down. Returning on his steps, Leuthold, whose quiet, ...

— Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence • Louis Agassiz

... dull detail, regardless of the right of other men to get an occasional word in edgewise—these are the true marks of the genuine bore. He must know that you take no interest in him or his story. Even if you did, his manner of telling it would flatten you, yet he fascinates you with that glassy stare, that self-conscious and self-admiring smirk, and distils his tale into your ears at the very moment when you are burning to talk over old College-days with CHALMERS, or to discuss an article in ...

— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 103, December 3, 1892 • Various

... of the flute brings out this quality of song. I must not allow the pressure of too much greed to flatten out the reed, for then, as I fear, music will give place to the questions "Why?" "What is the use of so much?" "How am I to get it?"—not a word of which will rhyme with what Radhika sang! So, as I was saying, illusion alone is real—it is the flute itself; ...

— The Home and the World • Rabindranath Tagore

More quotes...