rectangle

Etymology

It is borrowed from Middle French rectangle,^[2][3][4][5] which meant a right angle from 1484 and a four-sided figure with four right angles from 1556,^[2] from Medieval Latin rectangulus (“having a right angle”),^[2][4][6] an alteration of rēctiangulus (“right-angled”) (6th century),^[2][4] formed from rēctus (“straight, right”) and angulus (“angle”).^[2][7][3][8] Some dictionaries derive the English word instead, or as well, from rēctangulum,^{[9][5][10][11][12]} which in Late Latin, as rectiangulum, meant a right-angled triangle (in Isidore, before 636),^[2][3][12] and is recorded for a four-sided figure in a British source about 1596.^[2] The Shorter Oxford notes that the Late Latin adjective imitated the Greek word for right-angled.^[9] Etymonline traces the Latin adjective to Proto-Indo-European *reg- (“to move in a straight line”),^[3][7] and the OED compares rettangolo (1561).^[2] Latin rēctus is related to right,^[8][6] and is also the source of direct, rectify, rectitude and rectum.^[13]

Earliest recorded meaning

A plane figure with four straight sides and four right angles: about 1560, in Leonard Digges's Pantometria (published 1571); the sense "a right angle" is recorded in 1560 as well.^[2] Barnhart and Etymonline date the word to 1571 and the 1570s,^[4][3] and Merriam-Webster to about 1560.^[6]

Semantic evolution

In the 16th century the word was used for the figure, for a right angle and, in mathematics, for the product of two quantities;^[2] the last two are now rare, and the right-angle sense survives mainly in the phrase at rectangles.^[2] An adjective rectangle, right-angled, from 1570 in Billingsley's Euclid, was used especially in rectangle triangle,^[2][4] and Johnson (1755) still defined the noun as a figure with one or more right angles.^[14] The adjective rectangular followed in 1624.^[4] An old English name for the figure was long square (1650s).^[3] A square is strictly a rectangle with equal sides, but the word is usually limited to figures whose adjacent sides are unequal.^[3][2][6]

Timeline

• 1484 – Middle French rectangle, a right angle.^[2]
• 1560 – a right angle (now rare).^[2]
• c. 1560 – a four-sided figure with four right angles; in mathematics, the product of two quantities.^[2]
• 1570 – adjective, right-angled (later obsolete).^[2][4]
• 1624 – the adjective rectangular.^[4]
• 1798 – a right-angled triangle (rare, obsolete).^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. A four-sided plane figure with four right angles, a parallelogram whose opposite sides are equal; especially one whose adjacent sides are unequal: She drew a rectangle twice as wide as it was tall.^[6][10][2]
2. (rare) A right angle, especially in at rectangles.^[2][9]
3. (mathematics, rare) The product of two quantities.^[2][9]

Related words

• rectangular
• rectilinear
• rectification
• rectify
• right
• angle
• rectitude
• direct

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
5. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
7. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
8. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
9. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
11. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
13. ^ Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
14. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.