adjective
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shaped like a rectangle
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having or relating to right angles
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mutually perpendicular
rectangular coordinates
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having a base or section shaped like a rectangle
Other Word Forms
- nonrectangular adjective
- nonrectangularity noun
- nonrectangularly adverb
- rectangularity noun
- rectangularly adverb
- rectangularness noun
- subrectangular adjective
- unrectangular adjective
- unrectangularly adverb
Etymology
Origin of rectangular
1615–25; < Medieval Latin rēctangul ( um ) rectangle + -ar 1
Explanation
In geometry, something that is rectangular had four sides and four right angles. Cereal boxes, dollar bills, and many cell phones have a rectangular shape. Anything shaped like a rectangle is rectangular. Your backyard may be rectangular, and your brother's oversized suit jacket might give his body a somewhat rectangular shape. The most important aspect of something that makes it rectangular is those four right angles, and the word itself is rooted in the Latin rectus, "right," and the Old French angle, "angle."
Vocabulary lists containing rectangular
Geometry - Introductory
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Geometry - Middle School
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Number and Operations: Fractions
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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.
They run as a rectangular banner at the bottom—part of a widget that also shows news, the weather and a calendar.
From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 23, 2026
In the newest version of the detector, the metasurface that absorbs light was redesigned into a circular shape rather than a rectangular one.
From Science Daily • Mar. 4, 2026
He had pulled a thread attached to a flat, rectangular piece of waffle-like material segregated into dozens of wonky-looking square tiles.
From BBC • Mar. 3, 2026
One of the current show’s larger conceptual pieces, “Memorial for the Victims of Organized Religion II,” fills a corner with 48 rectangular portrait-sized photographs, all of them solid black or dark blue.
From Los Angeles Times • Feb. 17, 2026
At the front, nestled along one of the sides, I feel something hard and rectangular beneath a patch of fabric.
From "Girl in the Blue Coat" by Monica Hesse
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.
