What does flatted mean?
Flatted functions in two distinct ways. Its living sense belongs to music: a flatted note has been lowered by a semitone, typically marked with the flat symbol, and phrases such as 'flatted fifth' or 'flatted seventh' are routine in jazz, blues, and classical harmony, where altering a scale degree by a semitone shapes a chord's whole character. The word is also, strictly speaking, the past tense of the verb 'flat', meaning to make something flat or level, but in everyday modern prose that job has been taken over almost entirely by 'flattened'. As a result, readers who encounter 'flatted' outside a musical score may find it slightly archaic. Its connotation depends entirely on context: among musicians it signals deliberate, expressive alteration of pitch, while in older technical or trade writing it simply describes a surface made level. Knowing the musical sense is genuinely useful, since it recurs constantly in chord symbols, tablature, and discussions of scales.
Lowered (a note) in pitch by a semitone; past tense and past participle of the verb 'to flat'.
"She flatted the leading tone to soften the cadence."
Standard in musical contexts; rarely used elsewhere.
(Of a note or interval) Lowered by a semitone relative to the natural form, or designated by a flat symbol.
"The piece uses a flatted seventh throughout the bridge."
In jazz and blues, asking a player to 'flat' a note means dropping it a semitone — and 'flatted fifth' was once considered so dissonant it earned the nickname 'the devil's interval'.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of flatted
Flatted derives from the adjective 'flat', which came into Middle English from Old Norse 'flatr', meaning level or smooth, a borrowing from Scandinavian settlers. In music, 'flat' came to denote a note lowered by a semitone, and the verb 'to flat' a note followed naturally, with 'flatted' as its participle. Related English forms sharing the Old Norse root include 'flatly' and compounds like 'flatfish' and 'flatware'.
Related word forms
How flatted is actually used
Outside of music, 'flatted' sounds old-fashioned; most writers today would say 'flattened'. In musical writing, however, 'flatted third', 'flatted fifth', and 'flatted seventh' are completely standard technical terms.
Easily confused with flatted
'Flattened' is the standard past tense and participle of 'flatten' in general use, while 'flatted' survives mainly in musical contexts where it means lowered by a semitone.