Word.ws English Dictionary

flat out

/ˌflæt ˈaʊt/

flat out adjective: used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see flat, out.

Adjective

flat out (not comparable)

  1. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see flat, out.
    • So many of them took pictures, of themselves and of me, that we ran flat out of black-and-white film the second day out, and there wasn′t a Queen Mary necktie to be had in the shops after we left the port.1967 October 6, Dora Jane Hamblin, “Out to Sea and into History”, in LIFE, page 29
  2. Complete, total, downright.
    • Avoid Flat-Out Opposites
      The slob vs. the neatnik. The artist vs. the precision-freak. The freethinker vs. the tightass. Liberal vs. conservative. Jock vs. nerd. David vs. Goliath. Good vs. evil. Beauty and the Beast. Jekyll^([sic]) and Hyde.2003, Thomas B. Sawyer, Fiction Writing Demystified, page 63
    • I put up with a lot from them: sexist and racist jokes, routine descriptions of masculinist sexploitation, flat-out ridicule for my feminist views.2008, Shira Tarrant, Jackson Katz, Men Speak Out: Views on Gender, Sex, and Power, page 148
  3. Very busy.
    • I know we are all flat out. That is the way it is. We are flat out, and it becomes a way of life.2006, Gideon Kunda, Engineering Culture: Control and Commitment in a High-Tech Corporation, page 203
    • He [Riz Ahmed] duly leaves the way he came in: smiling, flat out, up against the clock.2026 January 31, Danny Leigh, “Lunch with the FT: Riz Ahmed”, in FT Weekend (Life & Arts section), London: The Financial Times Ltd., →ISSN, →OCLC, page 3
  4. (Australia) Lazy, sleeping.
    • flat out (like a lizard in the sun) - doing absolutely nothing

Adverb

flat out (not comparable)

  1. (idiomatic) At top speed.
    • After 10 minutes of running flat out, he was out of breath.
    • I had travelled one morning down to Aylesbury, and had left my train, and was about to cross the footbridge, when I heard the imperious whistle of a "B1." I paused, and round the bend came the "Master Cutler" with its engine working absolutely flat out.1955 April, W. J. Alcock, “Unforgettable Moments”, in Railway Magazine, page 271
  2. (idiomatic) Without hesitation or reservation, bluntly, no holds barred, totally, outright.
    • She thought it was best to tell him she didn't love him flat out.
    • He was flat out furious when his car was stolen.

Noun

flat out (plural flat outs)

  1. (US, dated) A total failure.
  2. A baked portion of flatbread; a baked item that is not meant to rise.
    • His hands were of the same somber hue as the bare feet of the children who clustered near the table, looking toward it whistfully^([sic]) until the eldest mustered sufficient courage to ask his mother for "one of 'em yere flat-outs."1881, Mary E. Jackson, The Spy of Osawatomie; Or, The Mysterious Companions of Old John Brown, page 296
  3. A wrap, an item of food consisting of various ingredients wrapped in a tortilla or pancake.
  4. A section of piste that is relatively flat, causing or allowing skiers to slow down.
    • The would-be daredevils are mercifully prevented from going too fast by strategically placed flat-outs.1979 November, Tamsin Venn, “The Pleasures of Keystone”, in Skiing, page 107
  5. An uncambered corner of racetrack; a racetrack whose corners are uncambered.
    • The circuit is very well endowed with corners of all sorts from hairpins to flat-outs, has a 1,540-yd. straight and measures 5.2 miles, partly on an airfield, partly through a built-up area.1952, Motor, volume 102, number 2654, page 31

Verb

flat out (third-person singular simple present flats out, present participle flatting out, simple past and past participle flatted out)

  1. (intransitive) To fail after a promising beginning; to disappoint expectations.
    • I see myself there warn't no sense in the tale, to chop square off that way before it come to anything, but I warn't going to say so, because I could see Tom was souring up pretty fast over the way it flatted out […] .1894, Mark Twain, Tom Sawyer Abroad, 2015, Tom Sawyer Collection: All Four Books, Enhanced Media, page 413
  2. (archaic, transitive) Synonym of flatten out (to make flat)
    Synonyms:
    flatten out

flat out meaning in Hindi and Malayalam

flat out in Hindi

flat out, complete, thorough
कोरा korā

flat out in Malayalam

as hard as possible, hard, for all one's worth
കഠിനമായി, തീക്ഷ്ണമായി, എല്ലാക്കഴിവുമുയോഗിച്ച്, സർവ്വവിധത്തിലും ശ്രമിച്ചുകൊണ്ട്, ശക്തിമുഴുവനുമെടുത്ത്, കഴിവിന്റെ പരമാവധി

Examples of flat out in a sentence

  • I was already sliding and too dedicated to change my line and just went flat out completely off the course.1966 November, Steve McQueen, “Motorcycles: What I like in a Bike - and why”, in Popular Science, page 80:
  • When antelope are running flat out, they resemble very rapidly departing dots; some say they can hit 60 mph.1979 November, Bob Brister, “Apache Antelope”, in Field & Stream, page 128:
  • I was half way down the strip when I heard a speedboat and ran flat out back to the landing spot.2007, Chris Viner-Smith, Australia′s Forgotten Frontier: The Unsung Police Who Held Our PNG Front Line, page 49:
  • The company's growth in the rail freight market, with a mix of new-to-rail and contract gains, has led to it working flat out.2023 July 12, Pip Dunn, “Class 99s: the "ultimate Electro-Diesel"”, in RAIL, number 987, page 53:

Synonyms of flat out

Forms of flat out

Adjective
alternative formflat-out
Noun
pluralflat outs
Verb
third-person singular presentflats out
present participleflatting out
past participleflatted out
pastflatted out

Words formed from flat out

  • flat out like a lizard drinking

Questions about flat out

What does flat out mean?
Flat out means used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see flat, out.
What is flat out in Hindi?
Flat out in Hindi is कोरा (korā). See Flat out meaning in Hindi.
How do you use flat out in a sentence?
I was already sliding and too dedicated to change my line and just went flat out completely off the course.
What part of speech is flat out?
Flat out can be an adjective, an adverb, a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce flat out?
Flat out is pronounced /ˌflæt ˈaʊt/.

Words near flat out in the dictionary

  1. flat lock
  2. flat locks
  3. flat nappies
  4. flat nappy
  5. flat on one's back
  6. flat out
  7. flat outs
  8. flat oval
  9. flat ovals
  10. flat pack
  11. flat packs

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: flat out (page history and authors); कोरा (Hindi) (page history and authors); flat out (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: EN-AU ck1 flat out.ogg.

Cite this entry: “flat out.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/flat_out. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.