Quote:
Originally Posted by Bookman
"This use of flat for an electric battery was first used in 1951 according to the OED (sense 9c)....
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I came across another mention of the above on another forum (didn't save it, will see if I can find it again), that mentions the use of "flat battery" in a car(?) manual from around the mid to late 1940's.
So the term itself doesn't seem to be (relatively) that old.
Found it:-
https://english.stackexchange.com/qu...attery-is-flat and it was 1941 and not a car manual - halfway down the page.