rectangle
Americannoun
-
rectangles
plural
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of rectangle
1565–75; < Medieval Latin rēctangulum, Late Latin rēctiangulum right-angled triangle (noun use of neuter of rēctiangulus having a right angle), equivalent to rēcti- recti- + angulum angle 1
Explanation
A rectangle is any shape with four sides and four right angles. All squares are rectangles but not all rectangles are squares (all the sides in a square have to be the same length). The rect in rectangle comes from the Latin rectus, which means "right" or "straight." Because of its right angles, a rectangle has straight sides. Another word with the same root is rectitude, which means moral uprightness. A morally upright person is someone who does the right thing, but doing the right thing doesn't make you a square — or a rectangle.
Vocabulary lists containing rectangle
Geometry - Introductory
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The ACT Math Test: Geometry, List 2
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Geometry - Middle School
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Another incident detected in early January involved around 1,000 Chinese fishing vessels clustered in an uneven rectangle, about 400 kilometres long, for more than a day in the same area of the East China Sea.
From Barron's ● Mar. 13, 2026
Yet, anyone born with “19” at the start of their birthyear still remembers how it felt to leave the house without a black rectangle in their hands.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 12, 2026
Once the dough had risen, I rolled it into a rectangle, spread on a thin layer of the miso-béchamel, showered it with Parmesan, Pecorino Romano and a very healthy amount of black pepper.
From Salon ● Nov. 12, 2025
In “Venice, Palazzo Dario,” each rectangle has a different kind of broken color and a different temperature.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 11, 2025
The two long sides of the rectangle were a little over three miles.
From "Homecoming" by Cynthia Voigt
The previous Galaxy Fold models are typical phone-shaped rectangles when closed, and Samsung is continuing the same elongated look with its new Galaxy Z Fold8 Ultra.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 22, 2026
Those red rectangles that you step off and get on for people in wheelchairs, those are probably our No. 1 priority, making sure they’re accessible.
From Slate ● Feb. 24, 2026
That memorial includes 805 hanging steel rectangles representing each of the counties in the United States where lynchings took place.
From Salon ● Apr. 18, 2025
In L.A.’s brittle landscape of concrete rectangles and choking freeways, Eaton Canyon, just seven miles from where we live, was a sanctuary to thousands of people.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 28, 2025
Now imagine trying to estimate the size of the triangle by inscribing little rectangles inside the triangle.
From "Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea" by Charles Seife
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
