Question

What shapes are quadrilateral?

Answer 1

Hint: The meaning of the Latin word “quad” is four and that of the word “latus” is side. So essentially, a quadrilateral is a shape having four sides. In addition to this, it must be two dimensional and closed. So the quadrilaterals will include all the shapes which are closed, two dimensional and have four vertices.

Complete step-by-step solution:
The term “quad” is a Latin word which is usually used to represent anything which is four in number. And the term “latus” is also a Latin word which is used for side. So the word quadrilateral refers to all the two dimensional figures or shapes which are closed and have four sides. Therefore, all the four sided two dimensional figures which are known to us will fall into the category of the quadrilaterals. We know that the examples of the two dimensional figures which have a total of four sides include the square, the parallelogram, the kite, the rectangle, etc. We can see below the figures for some of these shapes.

The above figure shows a square.

The above figure shows a parallelogram.

Note: We need to focus on each and every word in the definition of a quadrilateral. We must notice that the definition of a quadrilateral states that it includes two dimensional figures. The three dimensional figures, even if they are four sided, cannot be called quadrilaterals. Also, since quadrilaterals are closed figures, the number of vertices is equal to the number of sides. So a quadrilateral can also be identified as the shape having four vertices.