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

Mr. Talty presents characters worthy of our interest, but he tends to flatten them into stock types.

From The Wall Street Journal ● May 31, 2026

His eyes flatten, as if he knows what I’m thinking of doing.

From "Kwame Crashes the Underworld" by Craig Kofi Farmer

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

His voice flattens, his words become stripped back.

From BBC ● Sep. 12, 2025

She flattens her hands on her waist-sash as if she's nursing a stomachache.

From "The Belles" by Dhonielle Clayton

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

Pictures at the Lewes derailment have shown how the force of the train leaving the tracks had flattened trees and left a piece of track strewn across the embankment.

From BBC ● Aug. 14, 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

So do the animal-shaped wool carpets that riff on traditional skin rugs by using vegetarian-friendly materials to create colorful, flattened creatures: a fiery, spotted cheetah; a purple-striped dodo; a particularly silly mammoth.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 24, 2026

Sitting atop 250 tons of burning kerosene and liquid oxygen, his face flattened by a g-load that would cause an ordinary human to pass out—and he asks how the other guy is doing.

From "Fallout: Spies, Superbombs, and the Ultimate Cold War Showdown" by Steve Sheinkin

Tuesday's tremor caused widespread damage on the island of Kyushu, flattening homes, damaging bridges, triggering fires and leaving tens of thousands of residents without power and water.

From Barron's ● Jul. 30, 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

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy instructed senior leadership teams to increase the ratio of staff to managers by at least 15%, flattening organizational layers.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 5, 2026

Because it is flattening and shrinking the world, Globalization 3.0 is going to be more and more driven not only by individuals but also by a much more diverse — non-Western, nonwhite—group of individuals.

From "The World Is Flat" by Thomas L. Friedman