In geometry, a quadrilateral is a polygon with four sides (or 'edges') and four vertices or corners. Sometimes, the term quadrangle is used, by analogy with triangle, and sometimes tetragon for consistency with pentagon (5-sided), hexagon (6-sided) and so on. The word quadrilateral is made of the words quad (meaning "four") and lateral (meaning "of sides"). The interior angles of a quadrilateral add up to 360 degrees of arc.

Quadrilaterals are simple (not self-intersecting) or complex (self-intersecting). Simple quadrilaterals are either convex or concave.

All convex quadrilaterals tile the plane by repeated rotation around the midpoints of their edges.

Convex quadrilaterals - parallelograms

A parallelogram is a quadrilateral with two pairs of parallel sides. Equivalent conditions are that opposite sides are of equal length; that opposite angles are equal; or that the diagonals bisect each other. Parallelograms also include the square, rectangle, rhombus and rhomboid.

• Rhombus or rhomb: all four sides are of equal length. Equivalent conditions are that opposite sides are parallel and opposite angles are equal, or that the diagonals perpendicularly bisect each other. An informal description is "a pushed-over square" (including a square).
• Rhomboid: a parallelogram in which adjacent sides are of unequal lengths and angles are oblique (not right angles). Informally: "a pushed-over rectangle with no right angles."
• Rectangle: all four angles are right angles. An equivalent condition is that the diagonals bisect each other and are equal in length. Informally: "a box or oblong" (including a square).
• Square (regular quadrilateral): all four sides are of equal length (equilateral), and all four angles are right angles. An equivalent condition is that opposite sides are parallel (a square is a parallelogram), that the diagonals perpendicularly bisect each other, and are of equal length. A quadrilateral is a square if and only if it is both a rhombus and a rectangle.
• Oblong: a term sometimes used to denote a rectangle which has unequal sides (i.e. a rectangle that is not a square).

A shape that is both a rhombus (four equal sides) and a rectangle (four equal angles) is a square (four equal sides and four equal angles).

Square → Rhombus → Parallelogram (opposite sides are parallel) → Quadrilateral (four-sided polygon)

Convex quadrilaterals - other

• Kite: two pairs of adjacent sides are of equal length. This implies that one diagonal divides the kite into congruent triangles, and so the angles between the two pairs of equal sides are equal in measure. It also implies that the diagonals are perpendicular. (It is common, especially in the discussions on plane tessellations, to refer to the concave quadrilateral with these properties as a dart or arrowhead, with term kite being restricted to the convex shape.)

• Trapezium (British English) or trapezoid (NAm.): one pair of opposite sides are parallel.
• Isosceles trapezium (Brit.) or isosceles trapezoid (NAm.): one pair of opposite sides are parallel and the base angles are equal in measure. This implies that the other two sides are of equal length, and that the diagonals are of equal length. An alternative definition is: "a quadrilateral with an axis of symmetry bisecting one pair of opposite sides".
• Trapezium (NAm.): no sides are parallel. (In British English this would be called an irregular quadrilateral, and was once called a trapezoid.)
• Cyclic quadrilateral: the four vertices lie on a circumscribed circle.
• Tangential quadrilateral: the four edges are tangential to an inscribed circle. Another term for a tangential polygon is inscriptible.
• Bicentric quadrilateral: both cyclic and tangential.

More quadrilaterals

• A geometric chevron (dart or arrowhead) is a concave quadrilateral with bilateral symmetry like a kite, but one interior angle is reflex.
• A self-intersecting quadrilateral is called variously a cross-quadrilateral, butterfly quadrilateral or bow-tie quadrilateral.
• The area can be computed using Brahmagupta's formula for a cyclic quadrilateral, or Bretschneider's formula for a general quadrilateral.
• A non-planar quadrilateral is called a skew quadrilateral.

Taxonomy

A taxonomy of quadrilaterals is illustrated by the following graph. Lower forms are special cases of higher forms. Note that "trapezium" here is referring to the British definition (the North American equivalent is a trapezoid), and "kite" excludes the concave kite (arrowhead or dart). Inclusive definitions are used throughout.

External links

• Quadrilateral formula atlas at Geometry Atlas website.
• Weisstein, Eric W., "Quadrilateral" from MathWorld.
• Compendium Geometry Analytic Geometry of Quadrilaterals
• Quadrilaterals Formed by Perpendicular Bisectors, Projective Collinearity and Interactive Classification of Quadrilaterals from cut-the-knot
• Definitions and examples of quadrilaterals and Definition and properties of tetragons from Mathopenref
• Venn Diagram of Quadrilaterals
• An extended classification of quadrilaterals at Dynamic Math Learning Homepage
• The role and function of a hierarchical classification of quadrilaterals by Michael de Villiers

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