flatbed

An open freight vehicle with no sides, designed to carry heavy or outsized loads.

Adjective

  1. Having a flat bed.
    • I can't scan the whole document quickly because I only have a flatbed scanner.
    • The accident left the contents of a flatbed trailer scattered across all three lanes.

Origin

From flat + bed.

Noun

  1. An open freight vehicle with no sides, designed to carry heavy or outsized loads.
  2. A railway freight car with no sides; a flatcar.
    • The Rotrac E2 shunter was built by German manufacturer Zwiehoff and has been subject to a 14-month trial to prove it can replace diesel traction for moving flatbed wagons in and out of the depot. - 2021 December 29,...
  3. Clipping of flatbed trolley.
  4. A document scanner with a flat bed.

Forms

flatbeds flat bed flat-bed

Related

dray stakebody

Derived

flatbed lorry flatbed editor flatbed truck

Verb

  1. To transport by flatbed.
    • Tatiana went from working the pulley that lifted the treadless tank and placed it on tread, to painting the red star on a finished tank ready to be flatbedded and put into production. - 2000, Paullina Simons, The Bronze...
    • 'Well, we won't know about prints till we can flatbed his SUV back to Middle Street and check, but given he left the car in a hurry, my guess is we'll find something, maybe quite a lot. - 2011 -, James Hayman, The...
    • “I'm going to have to flatbed this vehicle,” Larry said with an air of importance that irritated Pytel. - 2012, Rus Bradburd, Make It, Take It, →ISBN, page 23:

Forms

flatbeds flatbedding flatbedded