Flatly

adv. [f. FLAT a. + -LY².]

  1.  In a flat or prostrate position. ? Obs.

c. 1425.  Wyntoun, Cron., VIII. xxxviii. 69.

1592.  Shaks., Ven. & Ad., 463.

  2.  a. With small curvature. b. As on a flat surface; without relief.

1797.  Holcroft, Stolberg’s Trav. (ed. 2), II. l. 205. The cupola is fallen down: but it is discoverable, from some remains, that it was very flatly arched; and the walls, which supported it, were not high.

1883.  C. C. Perkins, Itat. Sculpt., 116. In the best Renaissance ornament, where the child plays a conspicuous part, masks, tripods, wreaths and ribbons, as well as plants, fruits and flowers, are freely introduced, but these are treated flatly, and not in the round, on the principle of absolute imitation.

  3.  a. In a plain, blunt, or decisive manner; without ambiguity, qualification, or hesitation; plainly, bluntly; decisively. b. In the unqualified sense of the statement; absolutely, completely.

  a.  1562.  Cooper, Answ. Priv. Masse, 38. If I should flatly deny, that the mynister receiued, when none of the people were partakers, how could you prove it by this place?.

1578.  Chr. Prayers, in Priv. Prayers (1851), 541. To speak flatly, these only are the things, that are noisome and hurtful unto us.

a. 1618.  Raleigh, Prerog. Parl. (1628), 9. Notwithstanding the warres of France, and his great charge in repulsing the Welsh rebels, he was flatly denied the Subsedy demanded.

1761–2.  Hume, Hist. Eng. (1806), IV. lxii. 641. The common council of London flatly refused to submit to an assessment, required of them; and declared that, till a free and lawful parliament imposed taxes, they never should deem it their duty to make any payment.

1809.  Pinkney, Travels through the South of France, 57–8. He then flatly told me, that I must either have that or none; that it was as good bread as any in France, and that he intended to eat it for his own breakfast.

1879.  McCarthy, Own Times, II. xxix. 389. It is venturesome to call him [Ruskin] a great critic in art, for he seldom expresses any opinion one day without flatly contradicting it the next.

  b.  1577.  trans. Bullinger’s Decades (1592), 101. The disposition of mankind being flatly corrupted by sinne, as it is blind, so also is it in all points evil and naughty.

1583.  Babington, Commandm., i. 70. Such thinges as flatlie and directly are contrarie to the loue of thee.

1641.  Milton, Ch. Govt., iv. 14. Wherein, or in what work, is the office of a prelate excellent above that of a pastor? In ordination, you will say; but flatly against scripture: for there we know Timothy received ordination by the hands of the presbytery, notwithstanding all the vain delusions that are used to evade that testimony, and maintain an un warrantable usurpation.

1692.  Bentley, Boyle Lect., vii. 246. The same physical Point of Matter must move all matter of ways equally and constantly in the same instant and moment; which is flatly impossible.

1849.  Ruskin, Sev. Lamps, ii. § 1. 29. Of all sin there is, perhaps, no one more flatly opposite to the Almighty, no one more ‘wanting the good of virtue and of being,’ than this of lying.

1874.  Micklethwaite, Modern Parish Churches, 187. This is of course absurd, and indeed flatly impossible.

  4.  In a dull or spiritless manner; without zest; insipidly.

1644.  Digby, Two Treatises, II. Concl. 461. Rheumes will so clogge our tongue and palates, that we shall but flatly relish the most poinant meates.

1697.  Dryden, Virg. Pastorals, Preface (1721), I. 87. That Famous passage of Lucan, in which he prefers Cato to all the Gods at once,

1708.  Brit. Apollo, No. 45. 3/2.

1865.  Dickens, Mut. Fr., III. vi. He did not appear to have hidden anything, so went off rather flatly.

1885.  Manch. Exam., 22 July, 3/1. It … simply says ineffectively and flatly what has been said effectively and brightly by a score of writers.

  b.  Comm. With little competition.

1887.  Daily News, 8 July, 6/8. The more important parcels offered in public sale to-day went off flatly.