Chapter Flaccus to Flay a Fox of F by Brewer's Phrase & Fable

Flat One who is not sharp; a suite of rooms on one floor.

"Oh, Messrs ... what flats you are!" - The Times.

"He said he was going to have a flat to let on the top floor." - Howells: Hazards of New Fortunes. vol. i. part i. p. 123.

   Flat as a flounder. I knocked him down flat as a flounder. A flounder is one of the flat- fish.
   Flat as a pancake. Quite flat. A pancake is a thin flat cake, fried in a pan.

Flat-fish He is a regular flat-fish. A dull, stupid fellow, not up to anything. The play is upon flat (stupid), and such fish as plaice, dabs, and soles.

Flat Milk Skimmed milk, that is, milk "fletted" (Anglo-Saxon, flet, cream; Latin, flos lactis.)

Flat Race (A). A race on the flat or level ground without obstacles.

Flat Simplicity "The flat simplicity of that reply was admirable." (Colley Cibber: The Crooked Husband, i. 1.)

Flatterer Vitellius, the Roman synonym of flatterer. (Tacitus, Ann. vi. 32.)

Flatterers When flatterers meet, the devil goes to dinner. Flattery is so pernicious, so fills the heart with pride and conceit, so perverts the judgment and disturbs the balance of the mind, that Satan himself could do no greater mischief. He may go to dinner and leave the leaven of wickedness to operate its own mischief.

"Porteus, there is a proverb thou shouldst read:
`When flatterers meet, the devil goes to dinner.' "
Peter Pindar: Nil Admirari.

Flay a Fox (To). To vomit.

"At the time of the paroxysm he used to flay a fox by way of antidote." - Rabelais: Pantagruel iv. 44.