Etymologically
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rectangle

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Pronunciation

  • /ˈrɛktæŋɡl̩/[1]

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]

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.