FLATS

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does flats mean? 

• FLATS (noun)
  The noun FLATS has 1 sense:

1. footwear (shoes or slippers) with no heel (or a very low heel)

  Familiarity information: FLATS used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• FLATS (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Footwear (shoes or slippers) with no heel (or a very low heel)

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Hypernyms ("flats" is a kind of...):

footgear; footwear (covering for a person's feet)

Domain usage:

plural; plural form (the form of a word that is used to denote more than one)

 Context examples 

Holmes pointed with a chuckle to one of these, a row of residential flats, which projected so that they could not fail to catch the eye.

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

126B, was a passage between two large shops, which led to a winding stone stair, from which there were many flats, let as offices to companies or professional men.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

The sea is tumbling in over the shallows and the sandy flats with a roar, muffled in the sea-mists drifting inland.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

But as nothing of the sort happened to be walking about on Yarmouth flats that night, I provided the best substitute I could by dreaming of dragons until morning.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Sea rice that is able to grow in tidal flats or saline-alkali land was developed by crossbreeding different varieties of rice.

(Saltwater Rice Successfully Harvested by Chinese Scientists, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)

Having thus, amid a general titter, played very prettily with his interrupter, the lecturer went back to his picture of the past, the drying of the seas, the emergence of the sand-bank, the sluggish, viscous life which lay upon their margins, the overcrowded lagoons, the tendency of the sea creatures to take refuge upon the mud-flats, the abundance of food awaiting them, their consequent enormous growth.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Round the corner from the by-street, there was a square of ancient, handsome houses, now for the most part decayed from their high estate and let in flats and chambers to all sorts and conditions of men; map-engravers, architects, shady lawyers and the agents of obscure enterprises.

(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

At the doorway of the Howe Street flats a man, muffled in a cravat and greatcoat, was leaning against the railing.

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Even when he took Peggotty out for a walk on the flats, he had no uneasiness on that head, I believe; contenting himself with now and then asking her if she was pretty comfortable; and I remember that sometimes, after he was gone, Peggotty would throw her apron over her face, and laugh for half-an-hour.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

“I’ll do you this justice, Mr. Holmes, that I was never in a case yet that I didn’t feel stronger for having you on my side. There’s only the one exit to these flats, so we have him safe.”

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)