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flat

   Also found in: Dictionary/thesaurus, Medical, Financial, Acronyms, Idioms, Wikipedia, Hutchinson 0.02 sec.

Refers to structures that are not hierarchical such as a single list of items. It also refers to structures that do not contain explicit pointers to other structures. See flat file and flat address space. See also flat screen.

1.flat - Lacking any complex internal structure. "That bitty box has only a flat file system, not a hierarchical one." The verb form is flatten. Usually used pejoratively (at least with respect to file systems).
2.flat - Said of a memory architecture like that of the VAX or Motorola 680x0 that is one big linear address space (typically with each possible value of a processor register corresponding to a unique address). This is a Good Thing. The opposite is a "segmented" architecture like that of the Intel 80x86 in which addresses are composed from a base-register/offset pair. Segmented designs are generally considered cretinous.
3.flat - A flat domain is one where all elements except bottom are incomparable (equally well defined). E.g. the integers.
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? Mentioned in ? References in classic literature
 
I don't mind floating down when there's two or three of us in the flat and we can sit up.
Anne Of Green Gables by Montgomery, Lucy Maud View in context
But the important point to notice, is that these cells are always made at that degree of nearness to each other, that they would have intersected or broken into each other, if the spheres had been completed; but this is never permitted, the bees building perfectly flat walls of wax between the spheres which thus tend to intersect.
The Origin of Species by Darwin, Charles View in context
He was renting the flat furnished: of all the objects that encumbered it none were his own except the photograph frame, the Cupids, and the books.
Howards End by Forster, E. M. View in context
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