flat out
Language: English
Part of speech: adv
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˌflæt ˈaʊt/
ipa: /ˈflæt ˌaʊt/
Forms: form: flat-out
Senses: examples: text: After 10 minutes of running flat out, he was out of breath.
text: I had travelled one morning down to Aylesbury, and had left my train, and was about to cross the footbridge, when I heard the imperious whistle of a "B1." I paused, and round the bend came the "Master Cutler" with its engine working absolutely flat out.
ref: 1955 April, W. J. Alcock, “Unforgettable Moments”, in Railway Magazine, page 271:
text: I was already sliding and too dedicated to change my line and just went flat out completely off the course.
ref: 1966 November, Steve McQueen, “Motorcycles: What I like in a Bike - and why”, in Popular Science, page 80:
text: When antelope are running flat out, they resemble very rapidly departing dots; some say they can hit 60 mph.
ref: 1979 November, Bob Brister, “Apache Antelope”, in Field & Stream, page 128:
text: I was half way down the strip when I heard a speedboat and ran flat out back to the landing spot.
ref: 2007, Chris Viner-Smith, Australia′s Forgotten Frontier: The Unsung Police Who Held Our PNG Front Line, page 49:
text: The company's growth in the rail freight market, with a mix of new-to-rail and contract gains, has led to it working flat out.
ref: 2023 July 12, Pip Dunn, “Class 99s: the "ultimate Electro-Diesel"”, in RAIL, number 987, page 53:
glosses: At top speed.
examples: text: She thought it was best to tell him she didn't love him flat out.
text: He was flat out furious when his car was stolen.
text: Suppose that Professor Turk has won a prestigious grant and wants to impress his hearer with this fact, without saying flat out that he won it.
ref: 1984, Aloysius Martinich, Communication and Reference, page 38:
text: If, on the other hand, you simply deny flat out that you can give a metaphysical account of the concept “woman,” on the grounds that women are not essentially like one another in any respect— a position that, it′s important to notice, entails a commitment to your thinking that the idea of giving such an account is at least coherent— then you leave yourself with a problem about how to justify a politics based on the oppression of women.
ref: 2001, Nancy Bauer, Simone de Beauvoir, Philosophy, & Feminism, page 38:
text: “You′re gonna die,” he flat-out told Arfons.
ref: 2003 October, “Fool Speed Ahead”, in Cincinnati Magazine, page 128:
text: Sometimes an eagerly promoted product turns out to be a joke — and sometimes it′s just flat out dangerous to life, limb, or commerce.
ref: 2005 March, Seth Masia, “Almost Hits, Mostly Misses”, in Skiing Heritage: Journal of the International Skiing History Association, page 35:
text: 2006, Tony Rossi, Critique by guest commentator: Dr. Tony Rossi, Stephen Hagan, Australia's Blackest Sporting Moments: The Top 100, page 129,
The media (in all its forms) has been known to stoop to even lower levels by flat out abusing non-whites such as the Bulletin's little description of Patrick Bowman reported above and then the Referee's self-congratulatory note that Evans (the Balmain nigger ped) had found gainful employment (at which he was 'very handy' rather than competent or skilled) and had ceased to waste everybody's time with his running.
text: But I was disappointed and really unhappy with myself because I′d given in to a gut reaction that was flat-out wrong.
ref: 2008 March, Martha Lunken, “Lost in a DC-3 Over Georgia”, in Flying, page 64:
text: The White House took issue with the assessment. Karoline Leavitt, a White House spokeswoman, said its findings were “flat-out wrong.”
ref: 2025 June 24, Julian E. Barnes, Helene Cooper, Eric Schmitt, Ronen Bergman, Maggie Haberman, “Strike Set Back Iran’s Nuclear Program by Only a Few Months, U.S. Report Says”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:
glosses: Without hesitation or reservation, bluntly, no holds barred, totally, outright.