flat tire
Americannoun
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flat tires
plural
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a pneumatic tire that has lost all or most of its air through leakage, puncture, or the like.
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Older Slang. a dull or socially inept person.
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of flat tire
First recorded in 1920–25
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
The old Nigerian-prince emails promised a fortune; the modern romance scam asks for something smaller and sadder: the money to fix a flat tire, the cost of a plane ticket forever about to be booked.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 14, 2026
It's not like you can drive your car down the road, get a flat tire, pull over, fix it and keep going.
From Barron's ● Apr. 10, 2026
We also help each other out if anything goes wrong—a flat tire or something.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 12, 2025
I can’t touch the clot in a patient’s coronary, or see their stroke in the same way I can see a flat tire.
From Salon ● May 20, 2025
They inch forward through the night, until dawn, when Lumumba’s party is halted by a flat tire.
From "The Poisonwood Bible" by Barbara Kingsolver
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
