flatten
part of speech
verb (flatten, flattens, flattened, flattening)
meaning for a pupil
1) To make something flat or flatter by pressing or rolling it. tree →
2) To knock down or destroy something completely: «The storm flattened the trees». tree →
3) To become flat: «The hills flatten out near the sea». tree →
sense in the lessons
In cooking and crafts you flatten dough or clay with a rolling pin. In science and geography: wind or floods flatten crops and buildings; land flattens out into plains. In maths graphs: a line «flattens out» when it stops rising. Phrases: «flatten out», «flatten the dough», «flatten a box».
examples
- Flatten the dough with a rolling pin. tree →
- We flattened the cardboard boxes for recycling. tree →
- The storm flattened the farmer's wheat. tree →
- The road flattens out after the big hill. tree →
- She flattened the crumpled paper with her hand. tree →
- Squash and flatten the plasticine into a pancake. tree →
- The line on the graph flattens out after day five. tree →
- Her head seemed to flatten, and her eyes to look oddly round the corners; her legs and her arms were stuck to her sides, and she gasped wildly for breath. tree →
note
Double t + -en: flatten, flattened. Comes from «flat» + «-en» (like «short → shorten»). Do not confuse with «flatter» (to praise too much) or «flatter» (more flat).
In the corpora
- Then he heaves a long, long sigh, flattens his hair down neatly, and goes quietly downstairs to his guests.
- After dinner you rinse a tin, flatten a cereal box and drop a bottle into the right bin.
- Ears turned back or flattened mean a cat is scared or angry.
- When Chloe reaches for her, Duchess flattens her ears and stalks off like a duchess who's been insulted.
- The Earth is shaped like a ball, very slightly flattened at the poles.
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «flatten» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.