1A long flat area or structure.

1. 1.1 A vehicle with a flat load-carrying area.
   as modifier a flatbed truck

   Example sentencesExamples

   • Then swarms of military personnel combed the area and a tarp-covered flatbed truck rumbled out of the woods.
   • The car will need a lift the last 28 miles into Las Vegas on a flatbed tow truck.
   • He jumped up on a flatbed truck and motioned for us all to gather around for a speech.
   • Minneapolis police had a flatbed truck on location to help them confiscate bikes.
   • The second involved two cars and a flatbed truck.
   • Londoners and tourists stopped to watch as a flatbed truck with a police escort hauled it away to a secure location for more forensics tests.
   • They kept people away and eventually carted away something on the back of a flatbed truck.
   • Their whooping could be heard for counties, even over the din of the empty barrels colliding in their flatbeds and rumbleseats.
   • Each framed panel was shipped finished side up on a flatbed truck to the site.
   • A flatbed truck tries to back into an edge of the bus to flip it over but it is no use.
   • The launch container (3.05m long, 2.44m wide and 2.44m high) is permanently mounted on a flatbed truck.
   • Mink pushed him into a dirt driveway, past a flatbed truck.
   • It is a flatbed vehicle carrying 16 rockets arranged in two stacks positioned on either side of the vehicle bed.
   • When we were about halfway there, I saw five dirtbikes, the van, and the truck, the flatbed piled with people, come tearing out of the garage.
   • They ended up under the back wheels of a flatbed truck.
   • Monday morning, it went back to the dealer on a flatbed truck.
   • The large flatbed trucks have to maneuver around the plant.
   • The van rolled several times and collided with a flatbed lorry parked on the hard shoulder while workers were carrying out repairs near by.
   • Piggybacked on a flatbed, the vehicle was delivered back to the repair shop.
   • ‘A flatbed rail wagon of quite considerable tonnage and somewhere in the region of 12 ft to 15 ft in length was loaded with redundant rails,’ Mr Davies said.
2. 1.2as modifier Denoting a letterpress printing machine in which the form is carried on a horizontal surface.
   a flatbed press

   Example sentencesExamples

   • The Sun began with a traditional hand-run flatbed press but quickly switched to a cylinder press making a thousand, rather than two hundred, impressions an hour.
   • Simultaneously, we embarked into ‘desktop publishing,’ forsaking the old Line-O-Types and flatbed presses in our letterpress days.
   • Probably the printers had gone home for the day, so there would have been no clanking flatbed press.
   • Benjamin Day began his paper in 1833 without any capital, relying on a slow, hand-cranked flatbed press.
   • Here she is pictured with a flatbed press in 1983.
3. 1.3Computing A scanner, plotter, or other device which keeps paper flat during use.
   as modifier the flatbed technology lets paper enter and exit the printer directly

   Example sentencesExamples

   • This is also true of the other work in the show, Drawing Machine, in which a computer-programmed flatbed moves a tube that periodically drips ink onto thick paper that absorbs it irregularly.
   • Among his many accomplishments, he developed the technology behind the flatbed scanner, and he is a leading expert in speech recognition.
   • The transparent sheet was scanned using a flatbed.
   • The team then spread each set of debris onto a flatbed scanner to record the particle sizes.
   • In addition, participants may use flatbed or slide scanners, and both software and hardware to digitize and edit video and prepare it for streaming.