n.
'plain'
(Modern English flat)Usually associated directly with the adj. ME flat ‘flat’, always derived from ON (cp. OIcel flatr ‘flat, level’) which has direct cognates in OHG flaz, OS flat. Alternatively (so TGD) the ME noun could be derived from one of the ON nominal formations on the same root, viz. OIcel flǫt (fem.), flǫtr (masc.) ‘plain’, which is frequently adduced as the source of English flat in place-names (see EPNE, which compares Yks. dial. flat ‘a division of the common field’). PGmc *flat- is known in English only in its derivative form with j-theme, viz. OE flett ‘floor, ground; dwelling, house, hall’, which has widespread Germanic cognates (e.g. OIcel flet, OFris flett, OS flet, OHG flezzi).
PGmc Ancestor
*flat-
Proposed ON Etymon (OIcel representative)
flatr ‘flat, level’
(ONP flatr (adj.), flǫtr (sb.), flöt (f.) (Fritzner))
Other Scandinavian Reflexes
Far flatur, Icel flatur, Norw flat, Dan flad, Sw flat; Icel flötur; Far fløta, Icel flöt, Norw flot, flote
OE Cognate
cp. flett ‘floor, ground; dwelling, house, hall’
Phonological and morphological markers
Summary category
C1bc
The ME noun in MED’s sense 1 (‘a piece of level ground’, etc.) is relatively rare, and distinctively N (most of the citations are in onomastic material: see further Elliott 1984: 82 and EPNE).
Occurrences in the Gersum Corpus
Gaw 507, *Pe 127
Emerson (1927: 813, followed cautiously by McGee) argues that floty in Pe 127 (usually taken as a native adj. 'well supplied with streams', see EVG, MED) should be interpreted as a plural form and an error for flat.