flatten

James C. Scott called this legibility, the way institutions flatten complicated people into categories they can manage.

From Slate ● Aug. 21, 2026

The researchers found that rift flanks begin to flatten relatively quickly once tectonic movement ends.

From Science Daily ● Jul. 25, 2026

River can be a good thing, social media algorithms can flatten the context around the waterway, particularly when it comes to demographic changes in nearby neighborhoods.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 13, 2026

Sharing a chatbot creates security vulnerabilities and can flatten the user experience by muddling personalization features, OpenAI warns.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 28, 2026

And the bombardment also failed to flatten the Germans’ barbed-wire entanglements, merely tossing the barbed wire around and creating even more of a barrier than before.

From "The War to End All Wars: World War I" by Russell Freedman

A hot-strip mill flattens thick slabs of heated steel into long, thin ribbons of sheet steel that are wound into coils and shipped to customers.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 8, 2026

Like VIX, it is not as bullish as it could be: The term structure of the VIX futures rises in the front end of the curve but then flattens out.

From MarketWatch ● May 8, 2026

Sometimes it flattens the experience into palatable passive consumption.

From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 26, 2026

"If you think about taking a bowl of pizza dough and setting it spinning above your head, it flattens out," she explained.

From BBC ● Feb. 27, 2026

The fourth time we actually get further, building a second level before the whole thing flattens.

From "Challenger Deep" by Neal Shusterman

With the sun breaking through and a drying wind, the wicket flattened out and batting seemed to be becoming easier than on day one.

From BBC ● Sep. 3, 2026

So I sliced the kielbasa into coins, cut up one red pepper and one medium onion, tucked the whole thing into a reusable freezer bag and flattened it out.

From Salon ● Aug. 25, 2026

To build an airport, the Navy flattened a mountain.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 19, 2026

That night, a million hushed “sorry!’s” could be heard throughout the auditorium as hordes of alternatively inclined women — because there were mostly women — flattened themselves to move through their row.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 13, 2026

He stiffened and his ears flattened to his skull.

From "Tristan Strong Punches a Hole in the Sky" by Kwame Mbalia

Treating scientific opinion as simply “for” or “against” risks flattening these important distinctions.

From Science Daily ● Sep. 9, 2026

On June 24, the magnitude 7.2 and 7.5 earthquakes hit Caracas and the coastal state of La Guaira, flattening entire high-rise apartment blocks into layers of rubble.

From Barron's ● Jul. 11, 2026

At this stage, the flattening appears to reflect a market that believes policy is not restrictive enough to bring inflation back to target, rather than a market focused primarily on slowing growth.

From MarketWatch ● Jun. 24, 2026

Critics of the change say this risks flattening meaningful distinctions between religious identities, particularly for service members whose beliefs do not fall neatly into major denominational groupings.

From Salon ● Jun. 6, 2026

“I am still figuring out the logistics of interacting with physical things,” Marco says, flattening the raven’s wings and letting it limp down the length of his arm.

From "The Night Circus" by Erin Morgenstern