Frank J. Wilstach, comp. A Dictionary of Similes. 1916.
Flat
Fell flat as a damp squib.
—Anonymous
Flat as a pricked bladder.
—Anonymous
Flat as your hand.
—Anonymous
Flat as the beaten coin.
—Romance of Antar
Flat as a flounder.
—Beaumont and Fletcher
Lay flat like an anvil’s face.
—Robert Browning
Flat as a gravestone.
—Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Flat and bare as Hebrew verse of Bishop Hare.
—John Byrom
Flat as a fillet of sole.
—Irvin S. Cobb
Flat as a juryman.
—Charles Dickens
Flat as a flail.
—Bret Harte
As flat as a pancake.
—Ludvig Holberg (1684–1754)
Flat as a rose that has long been pressed.
—Oliver Wendell Holmes
As flat as Æschylus in Bohn’s translation.
—Victor Hugo
Flat as a willow-pattern plate.
—Victor Hugo
Flat as an excuse.
—Sydney Munden
Flat as the fens of Holland.
—Sir Walter Scott
Flat
As dead sands be at utmost ebb that drink
The drainèd salt o’ the sea.
—Algernon Charles Swinburne