[f. FLAT a. + -NESS.]
1. The quality or condition of being flat or level; esp. of a country.
c. 1440. Promp. Parv., 164/2. Flatnesse, planicies.
1601. Holland, Pliny, II. lxv. 31. Wonderfull it remaineth still, How it should become a Globe, considering so great flatnesse of Plaines and Seas!
1703. Moxon, Mech. Exerc., 150. Before they lay them upon the Floor, they try with the Level … the flatness of the whole Frame of Flooring again, lest any part of it should be Cast since it was first framed together.
1796. Morse, Amer. Geog., I. 725. Their heat, which occasions sweat even in January, is owing to the perfect flatness of the coasts.
1838. Murray’s Hand-bk. N. Germ., 372. Within its valleys are scenes of great beauty, enhanced in the eyes of the Germans of the north by being contrasted with the wearisome flatness and monotony of their own country.
2. The quality or fact of having a small curvature; diminished convexity.
1683. Ray, Corr. (1848), 134. The flatness of its bill, and its rising up with a high eminency, and its various colours.
1796. H. Hunter, trans. St. Pierre’s Studies of Nature (1799), I. p. iv. The mistake of our Astronomers, respecting the flatness of the Earth at the Poles.
1816. J. Scott, Vis. Paris (ed. 5), App. 324. Having gone in the evening to Neuilly, to view the bridge there, which is celebrated for the flatness of its arches.
1867. J. Hogg, Microsc., I. ii. 72–3. Flatness of field, or marginal and central definition, which denotes the exact capability of the objective to show the peripheral or marginal portions of the field with the same sharpness as the central.
1870. Whymper, Greenland, in Alpine Jrnl., V. 6. With the exception of places where the rocks are easy of disintegration, and the traces of glacier action have been to a great extent destroyed, the whole country bears the marks of the grinding and polishing of ice; and judging by the flatness of the curves of the roches moutonnées, and by the perfection of the polish which still remains upon the rocks, after they have sustained many centuries of extreme variation of temperature, the glacial period which produced such effects must have vastly exceeded in duration, or severity, the ‘glacial period’ of Europe; and the existing great interior ice-plateau of Greenland, enormous as it is, must be considered as but the remnant of a mass which was incalculably greater, and to which there is no parallel at the present time, excepting within the Antarctic circle.
3. ‘Want of relief or prominence’ (J.).
1702. Addison, Dialogues upon … Medals, iii. 164. One would think the Coiner look’d on the flatness of a figure as one of the greatest beauties in Sculpture.
1885. A. Mary F. Robinson, Profiles from the French Renaissance, in Mag. of Art, Sept., 478/2. The brilliant light in which the outline is lost, the solidity almost to flatness, the strong simple colour with its free employment of white and black and green, all remind us of Hans Holbein.
4. The condition of having great breadth in proportion to the thickness.
1878. Newcomb, Pop. Astron., III. iv. 344. Owing to the extreme thinness and flatness of the object [ring of Saturn], it was completely invisible in the telescopes of that time when its edge was presented towards the observer or towards the sun.
5. Outspokenness, plainness (of speech).
1887. Catherine Barter, Poor Nellie (1888), 10. The Rev. Mr Lawlor was altogether so eloquent, so learned, so enthusiastically in earnest, that whilst he himself feared he had contradicted the Archbishop with a flatness amounting to rudeness, he had really impressed the good Archbishop strongly in his favour.
b. Absoluteness, unqualified condition.
1611. Shaks., Wint. T., III. ii. 123.
| That he did but see | |
| The flatnesse of my miserie. |
6. Want of incident or interest; monotony.
1882–3. H. S. Holland, in Schaff, Encycl. Relig. Knowl., III. 2050–1. They had been taught by the novelists to turn to the past, whether of cavaliers with plumes and chivalry, or of the middle ages with wild castles and belted knights, and praying monks and cloistered nuns. All this world of strange mystery and artistic charm had become alive again to them, and the revival made them discontented with the prosy flatness of common life.
b. Comm. Dullness, lack of competition.
1812. G. Chalmers, Dom. Econ. Gt. Brit., 419. Dobbs is not happy, in accounting, for the flatness, and defalcation, of the trade of Ireland, during the intermediate period, to the fluctuations of her domestic manufactures.
1891. Times, 10 Oct., 12/1. The flatness of the American market.
7. Deficiency in flavour; deadness, insipidity, vapidness.
1707. J. Mortimer, Husb., xx. 598. Deadness or Flatness in Cyder, which is often occasion’d by the too free admission of Air into the Vessel, for want of right stopping, is remedied by grinding a small parcel of Apples, and putting of them into it.
1861. Delamer, The Kitchen Garden, 93. A mixture of sorrel corrects the peculiar flatness of its flavour: and in cooking, a larger proportion of salt may be added than to most other vegetables.
8. Of sound: Deadness.
1626. Bacon, Sylva, § 157. That Flatnesse of Sound is ioyned with a Harshnesse of Sound; which (no doubt) is caused by the Inequality of the Sound, which commeth from the part of the Sawcer vnder the Water, and from the Part aboue.
1734. Watts, Reliquiæ Juveniles, 207. When long Custom has induced a sort of Flatness into these Sounds, how happily soever the Words might be at first chosen, then perhaps we shall want something new and various to keep Nature awake to the Devotion.
9. Want of spirit or energy; apathetic condition, dejectedness: lack of mental acuteness or alertness; dulness of mind.
1641. Shute, Sarah & Hagar (1649), 84. Jezebel had used those upbraiding words towards Ahab, and reproached him with a flatness of spirit, as if he were not worthy to sway a Scepter.
1671. Glanvill, Disc. M. Stubbe, Pref. A ij b. It would be look’d upon as flatness, or fear, if I should deal softly with such an Adversary, who, like the other Enemy of Mankind, goes up and down, seeking whom he may devour.
1720. Welton, Suffer. Son of God, I. xiii. 332. The disgust and Flattness of our Souls, in Relation to those never-fading Treasures.
1802. Paley, Nat. Theol., xxiii. (1803), 458. Many minds are not so indisposed to any thing which can be offered to them, as they are to the flatness of being content with common reasons.
1810. Knox & Jebb, Corr., II. 5. In that place, a flatness of mind was gradually stealing upon me; and, from circumstances beyond my own control, must have continued so to do.
1876. Geo. Eliot, Dan. Der., III. xxxvi. 37. We should stamp every possible world with the flatness of our own inanity—which is necessarily impious, without faith or fellowship.
10. Of an author, literary style, conversation, etc.: Want of animation, brilliancy, or pointedness; prosaic dulness.
1649. Milton, Eikon., xvi. To help those many infirmities [in prayer], which he reck’ns up, rudeness, impertinencie, flatness, and the like, we have a remedy of Gods finding out, which is not Liturgie, but his own free spirit.
1715. Pope, Iliad, Pref. Some of his [Homer’s] translators having swelled into fustian in a proud confidence of the sublime; others sunk into flatness in a cold and timorous notion of simplicity.
1741. Watts, Improv. Mind, I. v. § 10. I cannot but consent to Mr. Dryden’s opinion [of Milton’s Paradise Lost], though I will not use his words, that for some scores of lines together there is a coldness and flatness, and almost a perfect absence of that spirit of poesy which breaths, and lives, and flames in other pages.
1844. Stanley, Arnold (1838), II. 144. The flatnesses and meagreness and unfairness of most of those who have written on this subject may not strike us, if we do not know what good History should be.
