flattop

Meaning

Noun

• A short haircut in which the hair is brushed straight up then cut flat across the top.
• An aircraft carrier.
• A type of stringed instrument, most often an acoustic guitar, with a flat top (as opposed to an archtop), with strings held in place with pins, and with a complex system of bracing struts on the top.

Related

Similar words

• folk guitar

Origin

• flat + top. Sense of “aircraft carrier” attributed to the message, “Scratch one flattop,” radioed during the Battle of the Coral Sea by LCDR Robert E. Dixon to the USS Lexington, whose commanding officer credited the pilot with coining the standard USN slang.