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Words, grammatical forms and meanings linked to the ontology.

flatlander en · NOUN

Pronunciation

Etymology

From flatland + -er.

Meanings

  1. (derogatory) A person who lives at, lived at, or was raised by someone at a low altitude or from any city. A person not raised in or by someone directly from high mountain areas. (used by those who were born, raised, and are still living in higher altitude non-city or city like areas).
    • Texans ski, Virginian's ski, New Englander's ski, flatlanders from the Midwest ski. We now have more than 3,000,000 skiers in North America and more than 600 organized ski areas (plus the many small areas with rope tows) to choose from ... 1967, Morten Lund, Bob Laurie, Skiers' Paradise: 100 Best Ski Runs in North America, New York: Putnam:
  2. (US, Western, derogatory, especially, in the Rocky Mountains) A person who lives at, lived at, or was raised by someone at a low altitude or from any city. A person not raised in or by someone directly from high mountain areas. (used by those who were born, raised, and are still living in higher altitude non-city or city like areas). ▸ Anyone from the East; anyone from outside the Rockies.
    • [...as] Rocky Mountain News termed it. Although some potential visitors would wonder whether it was safe, especially "flatlanders" unaccustomed to mountain driving, Trail Ridge provided a perfect roadbed […] 1983, C. W. Buchholtz, Rocky Mountain National Park: A History, University Press of Colorado:
    • At least I'm becoming acclimated to the high altitude. She wasn't gasping for breath like most Flatlanders after first arriving in the mountains. 2014, Bill Burch, Return to Rocky Mountain Watershed: Its River - Its People, outskirtspress, →ISBN:
    • Ahead stretched the great Rocky Mountains. For this family of Iowa flatlanders, it was a spectacular sight. 2003, Gayle Tow, Beyond the Golden Gate: A Pioneer Woman's Journey from California's Gold Country to Oregon's Fertile Tillamook Valley, →ISBN:
  3. (Appalachia, derogatory) A person who lives at, lived at, or was raised by someone at a low altitude or from any city. A person not raised in or by someone directly from high mountain areas. (used by those who were born, raised, and are still living in higher altitude non-city or city like areas). ▸ Any outsider to Appalachia.
    • […] the mountain folk, as a group, much more frequently opposed the "flatlanders." 1991, Conference on the Appalachian Frontier, Shenandoah Valley Historical Institute, American Frontier Culture Foundation, Appalachian Frontiers: Settlement, Society & Development in the Preindustrial Era:
    • Briefly put, the image of the "poor" in Appalachia imposed by the poverty workers on these people relies on a faulty model. […] In their own efforts to explain the wary attitudes of Appalachian people toward "flatlanders," the poverty workers […] 1969, Steward Anthropological Society, Journal of the Steward Anthropological Society:
    • The sources of food for a family in Appalachia were more varied than might be assumed by flatlanders. The family garden was the most important. 1991, Southern Appalachia, 1885-1915: Oral Histories from Residents of the State Corner Area of North Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia (McFarland & Company Incorporated Pub)
    • [It's a] powerful story of mountain life, and quite likely it's the most appealing one to both natives and flatlanders alike . 2004, Appalachian Journal:
    • […] throughout the entire period prior to the Civil War, though the percentage was higher in some parts of Appalachia […] as tensions between mountain residents who grew corn on small farms and flatlanders who owned plantations escalated. 2006, Grace Toney Edwards, JoAnn Aust Asbury, Ricky L. Cox, A Handbook to Appalachia: An Introduction to the Region, Univ. of Tennessee Press, →ISBN, page 4:
    • “These flatlanders,” he said, “shouldn't be allowed to camp at the shelters. They throw junk all around and take up space. That's all they are, flatlanders.” 2016, Steve Sherman, Julia Older, Appalachian Odyssey: Walking the Trail from Georgia to Maine, Open Road Media, →ISBN:
  4. (Appalachia, derogatory, qualifier:northern central Pennsylvania) A person who lives at, lived at, or was raised by someone at a low altitude or from any city. A person not raised in or by someone directly from high mountain areas. (used by those who were born, raised, and are still living in higher altitude non-city or city like areas). ▸ Any outsider to Appalachia. ▸ Anyone from southern Pennsylvania (particularly around Philadelphia), New Jersey, or other low-lying areas outside the Alleghenies / Appalachians.
    • This paper will examine the tradition of these urbanites from cities like Pittsburgh, New Castle, Sharon, and Erie, Pennsylvania; and Cleveland, Akron, and Youngstown, Ohio; who have been termed "flatlanders," ... 2008, Joseph L. Scarpaci, Kevin Joseph Patrick, Pittsburgh and the Appalachians: Cultural and Natural Resources in a Postindustrial Age, University of Pittsburgh Pre, →ISBN, page 203:
    • In north central Pennsylvania there are two types of people— ridge runners and flatlanders. The mountain men of north central Pennsylvania are called ridge runners. I've met many, liked a few, and recorded the stories of two, […] 2007, Vance Dunbar, Rattlers & Snappers: Reptiles, Amphibians, and Outlaws, AuthorHouse, →ISBN, page 61:
    • "Ridgerunners are born and bred in the hills of northern and central Pennsylvania. Basically everyone else is a flatlander." "And flatlanders aren't really to be trusted." "That's not unique to this area," Emma said. "The distrust of outsiders[…]" 2009, Cathie Linz, Smart Girls Think Twice, Penguin, →ISBN, page 109:
  5. (Maine, derogatory, qualifier:Vermont) A person who lives at, lived at, or was raised by someone at a low altitude or from any city. A person not raised in or by someone directly from high mountain areas. (used by those who were born, raised, and are still living in higher altitude non-city or city like areas). ▸ Any non-native, but particularly one from southern New England (including Massachusetts), downstate New York, or New Jersey.
    • […] southern New Englanders still generally consider their northern brethren to be quaint country bumpkins, and northern New Englanders are still regularly heard referring to their southern brethren, with unmistakable derision, as "flatlanders." 2001, Dave Preble, The Fishes of the Sea: Commercial and Sport Fishing in New England, Sheridan House, Inc., →ISBN, page 30:
    • […] the “Flatlanders,” coined by native New Englanders who were threatened by unknowns or unwanted invaders from the East. These New Englanders, with a long lineage of family in the area, were not pleased with these strangers, who boldly ... 2020, Helena C. Farrell, No Trick or Treats: A Novel, AuthorHouse, →ISBN:
    • “Use it up, wear it out, make it do, do without” is a phrase often used to sum up the philosophy of New Englanders to material goods. Small towns are often accused of being cool to outsiders, particularly “flatlanders” moving in from anywhere— particularly anywhere outside New England. 2012, Insight Guides, Insight Guides: New England, Apa Publications (UK) Limited
    • […] Abenaki resistance in the eighteenth century than with the westward migration of New Englanders in the nineteenth century, but the Abenakis initiated that now time-honored Vermont tradition of discouraging flatlanders from settling here. 1992, Michael Sherman, Jennie G. Versteeg, We Vermonters: Perspectives on the Past:
  6. (derogatory, qualifier:Upper Peninsula of Michigan) A person who lives at, lived at, or was raised by someone at a low altitude or from any city. A person not raised in or by someone directly from high mountain areas. (used by those who were born, raised, and are still living in higher altitude non-city or city like areas). ▸ Anyone from Wisconsin.
  7. (derogatory, qualifier:Northern Michigan) A person who lives at, lived at, or was raised by someone at a low altitude or from any city. A person not raised in or by someone directly from high mountain areas. (used by those who were born, raised, and are still living in higher altitude non-city or city like areas). ▸ Anyone from lower Michigan (those south of Mt. Pleasant).
  8. (derogatory, qualifier:Lower Michigan) A person who lives at, lived at, or was raised by someone at a low altitude or from any city. A person not raised in or by someone directly from high mountain areas. (used by those who were born, raised, and are still living in higher altitude non-city or city like areas). ▸ Anyone from Indiana or Ohio.
  9. (derogatory, qualifier:Wisconsin) A person who lives at, lived at, or was raised by someone at a low altitude or from any city. A person not raised in or by someone directly from high mountain areas. (used by those who were born, raised, and are still living in higher altitude non-city or city like areas). ▸ Anyone from Illinois.
  10. (Canada, derogatory) A person who lives at, lived at, or was raised by someone at a low altitude or from any city. A person not raised in or by someone directly from high mountain areas. (used by those who were born, raised, and are still living in higher altitude non-city or city like areas). ▸ Anyone from Saskatchewan.
  11. (Georgia, derogatory) A person who lives at, lived at, or was raised by someone at a low altitude or from any city. A person not raised in or by someone directly from high mountain areas. (used by those who were born, raised, and are still living in higher altitude non-city or city like areas). ▸ Anyone from Florida.
  12. (derogatory, qualifier:Central Coast NSW) A person who lives at, lived at, or was raised by someone at a low altitude or from any city. A person not raised in or by someone directly from high mountain areas. (used by those who were born, raised, and are still living in higher altitude non-city or city like areas). ▸ Anyone from Umina.
  13. An inhabitant of or observer in a universe with two spatial dimensions.
    • The perceptual acts of the two-dimensional flatlander are seen by the projective Euclidean eyes as funny, [...] 1979, “A Form of Pantomime”, in Link, volume 21, part 3, page 86:
    • Earlier we gave the example of a plane taking off in the third dimension apparently disappearing from the view of a two-dimensional flatlander; analogously, particles appearing from the fifth dimension, or disappearing into it, could be a signal at the LHC that space-time is indeed, like Emmenthal cheese, permeated with little bubbles which are at the edge of our present abilities to measure. 2009, Frank Close, Nothing: a very short introduction, page 140:
    • For our omniscient Mathematician, on the other hand, the time dimension from the beginning to the end of the game would be copresent, as would be our gaze of a flatlander's world. 1991, Floyd Merrell, Unthinking Thinking: Jorge Luis Borges, mathematics, and the new physics, page 232:
    • To the flatlander the third dimension necessarily appears to be a process, something he travels through as he moves or is shifted across an area. He cannot occupy more than one position in the third dimension simultaneously. 1978, Henry Wesley Grayson, The Theory of Relativity Revisited:
  14. A flatland BMX rider.

Forms

SpellingFeaturesLabelsSource
flatlanders Number=Plur lexicographic

Antonyms

ridge-runner (antonym(s) of “person who was born or raised by someone outside low altitude mountainous regions”) · highlander (antonym(s) of “person who was born or raised by someone outside low altitude mountainous regions”)

Relateds

Downlanders · prairie people · city folk