Trapezoid

Pronunciation: /ˈtræ.pəˌzɔɪd/ Explain

Click on the blue points and drag them to change the figure. Can a trapezoid also be a rectangle? Manipulative 1 - Trapezoid Created with GeoGebra.

A trapezoid (in American English) or trapezium (in British English) is a four sided quadrilateral where one pair of opposite sides are parallel.[2][3] The parallel sides are called bases. The other two sides are called legs. The word 'trapezoid' is used in U.S. English. The word 'trapezium' is used in British English. The two words mean the same thing.

References

1. McAdams, David E.. All Math Words Dictionary, trapezoid. 2nd Classroom edition 20150108-4799968. pg 181. Life is a Story Problem LLC. January 8, 2015. Buy the book
2. Hilbert, David. The Foundations of Geometry. pg 28. Translated by Townsend, E. J., Ph. D.. The Open Court Publishing Company. 1950. Last Accessed 12/16/2018. http://www.gutenberg.org/files/17384/17384-pdf.pdf. Buy the book
3. Stöcker, K.H.. The Elements of Constructive Geometry, Inductively Presented. pp 23, 36-38. Translated by Noetling, William A.M, C.E.. www.archive.org. Silver, Burdett & Company. 1897. Last Accessed 12/16/2018. http://www.archive.org/stream/elementsofconstr00noetrich#page/23/mode/1up. Buy the book
4. Keller, Samuel Smith. Mathematics for Engineering Students, Plane and Solid Geometry. pg 45. www.archive.org. D. Van Nostrand Company. 1908. Last Accessed 12/16/2018. http://www.archive.org/stream/firstsixbooksofe00caseuoft#page/45/mode/1up/search/trapezium. Buy the book

Cite this article as:

McAdams, David E. Trapezoid. 12/21/2018. All Math Words Encyclopedia. Life is a Story Problem LLC. http://www.allmathwords.org/en/t/trapezoid.html.

Image Credits

• All images and manipulatives are by David McAdams unless otherwise stated. All images by David McAdams are Copyright © Life is a Story Problem LLC and are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Revision History

12/21/2018: Reviewed and corrected IPA pronunication. (McAdams, David E.)
12/14/2018: Removed broken links, updated license, implemented new markup. Changed geogebra to new format. (McAdams, David E.)
8/7/2018: Changed vocabulary links to WORDLINK format. (McAdams, David E.)
12/31/2009: Added "References". (McAdams, David E.)
9/17/2009: Initial version. (McAdams, David E.)