flatten
Americanverb (used with object)
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flattens,
present (3rd person singular)
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flattened,
past participle, past
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flattening
present participle
verb (used without object)
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flattens,
present (3rd person singular)
-
flattened,
past participle, past
-
flattening
present participle
verb phrase
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flatten out to fly into a horizontal position, as after a dive.
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flatten in flat.
verb
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(sometimes foll by out) to make or become flat or flatter
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informal (tr)
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to knock down or injure; prostrate
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to crush or subdue
failure will flatten his self-esteem
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Usual US word: flat. (tr) music to lower the pitch of (a note) by one chromatic semitone
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to manoeuvre an aircraft into horizontal flight, esp after a dive
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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flattensimple
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flattenssimple
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have flattenedperfect
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has flattenedperfect
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am flatteningprogressive
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are flatteningprogressive
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is flatteningprogressive
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have been flatteningperfect progressive
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has been flatteningperfect progressive
Past
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flattenedsimple
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had flattenedperfect
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was flatteningprogressive
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were flatteningprogressive
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had been flatteningperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of flatten
Explanation
When you flatten something, you crush it or level it out. If the recycling bin is getting full, you should probably flatten all those cans you're adding to it. You might flatten the batter in a cake pan before baking it, or flatten the grass along a path through a field. If your curly hair tends to get frizzy in humid weather, you may try to flatten it before you leave for school in the morning. You also might flatten yourself against a wall if you're hiding from your friend, or describe a terrible storm this way: "The tornado managed to flatten several buildings."
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.
See Examples For:
James C. Scott called this legibility, the way institutions flatten complicated people into categories they can manage.
From Slate ● Aug. 21, 2026
AI threatens to flatten India’s information-technology industry, one of the few reliable creators of middle-class jobs.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 29, 2026
The researchers found that rift flanks begin to flatten relatively quickly once tectonic movement ends.
From Science Daily ● Jul. 25, 2026
River can be a good thing, social media algorithms can flatten the context around the waterway, particularly when it comes to demographic changes in nearby neighborhoods.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 13, 2026
But soon after I start tapping on it, it starts to flatten and tear.
From "Zara’s Rules for Record-Breaking Fun" by Hena Khan
A hot-strip mill flattens thick slabs of heated steel into long, thin ribbons of sheet steel that are wound into coils and shipped to customers.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 8, 2026
Like VIX, it is not as bullish as it could be: The term structure of the VIX futures rises in the front end of the curve but then flattens out.
From MarketWatch ● May 8, 2026
But this approach effectively flattens the data - anything above 500 is treated the same on official monitors, even if the real concentration is far higher.
From BBC ● Nov. 15, 2025
Over and over again, this documentary makes the point that the screen flattens people’s full humanity.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 26, 2025
The fourth time we actually get further, building a second level before the whole thing flattens.
From "Challenger Deep" by Neal Shusterman
When Thoreau spews nonsense, such as men, “like the earth, revolve mainly from west to east, and so are flattened at the poles,” let’s call the silliness by its real name.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 14, 2026
Water vole volunteers 'get very excited by flattened poo'
From BBC ● Aug. 14, 2026
If you haven’t been following the controversy, Wilson felt that Nolan had flattened the saga by mostly erasing the Greek gods and Odysseus’ wit, lust and thorny contradictions.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 4, 2026
We live saturated in opinion, reaction and digital noise, a culture that turns other people into content: flattened, accelerated, easy to dismiss.
From Salon ● Jul. 30, 2026
The kind you wouldn’t want to get flattened by.
From "A Place at the Table" by Saadia Faruqi and Laura Shovan
To some, it may feel like Araki is flattening complex social mores and misunderstanding the anxieties behind this era of semi-celibacy.
From Salon ● Jul. 31, 2026
However, the yield curve began rolling over in April 2025 and has been flattening again since year-end.
From Barron's ● Jun. 26, 2026
At this stage, the flattening appears to reflect a market that believes policy is not restrictive enough to bring inflation back to target, rather than a market focused primarily on slowing growth.
From MarketWatch ● Jun. 24, 2026
What makes Reble compelling is her refusal to soften herself for wider consumption - she resists explaining, translating or flattening her world into something more familiar.
From BBC ● May 15, 2026
I smoothed my palm over the cover, flattening a corner that might have bent in the fall from Fred’s window.
From "The Line Tender" by Kate Allen
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.
