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1. Praise or compliment someone, esp. insincerely or to win favour
   "No matter how much the sisters tried to flatter their dad, he refused to buy any more tickets for rides";
   - blandish
    
2. Make someone feel proud by praising them, or feeding their vanity

1. Having a surface without slope, tilt in which no part is higher or lower than another
   "a flat desk"; "skirts sewn with fine flat seams";
   - level, plane
    
2. (photography) lacking contrast or shading between tones
    
3. (of a musical note) lowered in pitch by one chromatic semitone
   "B flat"
    
4. Having a relatively broad surface in relation to depth or thickness
   "flat computer monitors"
    
5. Not modified or restricted by reservations
   "a flat refusal";
   - categoric, categorical, unconditional
    
6. Stretched out and lying at full length along the ground
   "found himself lying flat on the floor";
   - prostrate
    
7. (biology) flattened laterally along the whole length (e.g., certain leafstalks or flatfishes)
   - compressed
    
8. Lacking taste, flavour or tang
   "a flat diet";
   - bland, flavorless [US], flavourless [Brit, Cdn], insipid, savorless [US], savourless [Brit, Cdn], vapid
    
9. Lacking stimulating characteristics; uninteresting
   "a flat joke";
   - bland
    
10. Having lost effervescence
    "flat beer"; "a flat cola"
     
11. Sounded or spoken in a tone unvarying in pitch
    "the owl's faint flat hooting";
    - monotone, monotonic, monotonous
     
12. Horizontally level
    "a flat roof"
     
13. Lacking the expected range or depth; not designed to give an illusion or depth
    "a flat two-dimensional painting";
    - two-dimensional, 2-dimensional
     
14. Not reflecting light; not glossy
    "flat wall paint";
    - mat, matt, matte, matted
     
15. Commercially inactive
    "flat sales for the month"; "prices remained flat"; "a flat market"
     
16. [Brit] Drained of electric charge; discharged
    "a flat battery";
    - dead, drained

Derived forms: flattered, flattering, flatters

See also: dull, even, horizontal, inactive, multidimensional, noneffervescent, planar, tasteless, thin, two-dimensional, uncharged, unerect, unexciting, unmodulated, unqualified, unstimulating

Type of: praise

Antonym: contrasty, natural, pick at, sharp

Encyclopedia: Flatter