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Glite Dictionary
🌄 No hills 🥤 Lack of liveliness 🎨 No contrast
flatness

flatness

2 4.9
A lack of taste and energy in food or writing
  • noun
  • /ˈflæt.nəs/
: falta de vitalidad
  • The flatness and misery of common life depress me.

But will there be a flatness in that area of your life and long term grief?

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Examples

  • The painting lacked vibrancy, presenting a dull flatness that disappointed the viewers.

  • Hemingway's great weakness was the flatness of most of his female characters.

    Blog text (22)

  • There was an odd flatness to his voice, a peculiar calm.

    Fiction book (1998)

  • But after a while longer, you'd notice a certain flatness to its personality.

    Fiction book (2002)

  • Perhaps I feel the flatness and ineptness of his narrative more because of my own particular training.

    Blog text (22)

  • The look on her face belied her voice's previous flatness, mirroring Aidan's expression almost exactly.

    Fiction book (1992)

  • Frustrated at the emotional flatness of these words, I sat down and rather than revising, I imagined Selu writing a memoir.

    Academic text (2009)

  • A recent example is Juliet John's Dickens's Villains: Melodrama, Character, Popular Culture, which argues that the flatness of Dickens's characters is intentional.

    Academic text (2005)

  • Her speech had a noticeable flatness that made it hard to stay engaged.

  • He struggled to express himself, often caught in a emotional flatness that affected his relationships.

Synonyms

blandness
vsflatness
2 4.1

A pleasant, polite style that feels too safe or insincere

is harsher, pointing to plain lack of liveliness or brilliance
boringness
vsflatness
2 3.8

A state that makes you lose interest

is milder, focusing on lack of freshness rather than extreme boredom
drabness
vsflatness
1 5.1

A plain, dull appearance with no bright color or style

is broader, not only visual but covering dullness in style or expression
vapidity
vsflatness
1 9.3

A lack of energy and interest in speech or writing

is used more widely for dullness in style taste or expression
insipidity
vsflatness
1 9.6

Lack of flavor or interest that makes something dull

is the general term for dullness in taste style or expression
vapidness
vsflatness
1 8.4

A feeling that something is dull and boring

is the neutral term for low liveliness rather than a strong label
insipidness
vsflatness
1 8.2

Being dull and without strong taste or interest

is broader and covers dullness in taste style or expression
tameness
vsflatness
1 5.8

The quality of being boring and unoriginal

is more general, covering dullness in taste style or expression
prosaicness
vsflatness
1 9.1

The quality of being ordinary and not exciting

is broader, applying to any lack of liveliness or brilliance

Antonyms

vibrancy
7 4.6

A strong, lively energy and brightness in people, places, or things

brilliance
5 4.5

A very bright light that makes it hard to see

How Lively

vividness
2 4.2
liveliness
3 3.4
flatness
2 4.9
dullness
2 3.4
deadness
2 5.3

Surface Forms

flatness singular
flatnesses plural

Morphology

flatness = flat (semi-transparent) = flat + ness

The noun is a nominalization of the adjective 'flat' but the sense 'lack of liveliness or brilliance' is a metaphorical/figurative extension that learners must infer.

Etymology

Flatness is formed from flat + -ness, and flat has long been used to mean 'without lift or sparkle' — a good image is a soda that has lost its bubbles and tastes dull. So, flatness can mean the 'lack of liveliness or freshness', just like that flat drink.