Image: Yuichiro Chino/ Moment/ Getty Images/ Wikicommons by GYassineMrabetTalkâ
About This Quiz
Basic shapes are one of the first things we get to learn about as a kid and let's be honest, it's pretty funny. You take a square block, try to fit it in a round hole and eventually you come to realize the two aren't the same and your brain clicks all of a sudden. Bam! You just figured out circles and squares. Then later in school they'll start teaching you about hexagons and parallelograms, you'll get the Pythagorean Theorem drilled into your head until you have triangle nightmares and you'll be able to tell someone what a rhombus is without even looking it up. Of course, the day may come when you drift away from geometry and start forgetting what you once learned. How many sides are in a dodecagon anyway? And what was the difference between an isosceles triangle and an obtuse triangle?
Lucky for you there are only so many shapes in the world at large so there are only so many options for a quiz like this, right? You know a circle when you see one. You know a rectangle like the back of your own hand! But do you know a great stellated dodecahedron? Let's find out!
Oval
Rhombus
Crescent
Circle
A perfect circle is one in which everything is equidistant from one middle point. Some people will get technical and say you can never draw a perfect circle because the line weight of the ink or whatever you drew it with will be inconsistent and imperfect, but that's nitpicking.
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Hexagon
Octagon
A stop sign and a UFC fighting ring both have the same shape of an octagon. It's an 8-sided polygon, hence the "octa" part of the name. The sum of all internal angles in any octagon is 1080 degrees while the external angles add up to 360.
Parallelogram
Pentagon
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Obtuse
Right
Equilateral
Acute
Al three angles must be less than 90 degrees for a triangle to be considered an acute triangle. It's a kind of oblique triangle and cannot be a right triangle because none of the angles are exactly 90 degrees.
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Sphere
Pyramid
A pyramid is probably the most famous polyhedron shape thanks to the pyramids in Egypt. It has a polygon base and flat sides that meet at the apex or point on the top of the pyramid. The shape allows for very efficient weight distribution when it comes to building.
Rectangle
Crescent
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Parallelogram
Rhomboid
Square
A perfect square has four sides of the same length and four even 90-degree angles. If the angles weren't even it could be slanted and become a parallelogram and if the sides aren't even but the angles are, then it's a rectangle.
Trapezoid
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Scalene
Isosceles
Kepler
Obtuse
Acute refers to angles below 90 degrees while obtuse refers to those above. An obtuse triangle will still have two acute angles because mathematically that's the only possible way to join the shape with an obtuse angle.
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Oval
Sphere
Hexagon
Bees are crafty little creatures and they form their honeycombs in natural, six-sided hexagons. The shape also appears in nature in things like naturally forming basalt columns and in crystals like cinnabar and beryl.
Dodecahedron
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Cone
Cones taper smoothly from a flat base to a single apex point. The structure is one that allows for strength and stability focused on the point. One of the most prominent cones you'll see in nature is in a storm like a tornado.
Cylinder
Torus
Sphere
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Crescent
Icosagon
Cylinder
Rhombus
A rhombus is a shape that has four sides all of the same length. In very simple terms what we commonly understand as a diamond shape, as in the suit from a deck of playing cards, is a rhombus.
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Equilateral
Scalene
All the measurements of a scalene triangle have to be different. No two sides share the same length, no two angles share the same number, either. A scalene could be a right triangle, but it doesn't have to be.
Kepler
Polygonal
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Paralleogram
Dodecagon
Polyhedron
When polygons meet the third dimension they become polyhedrons. A polyhedron has straight edges and sharp corners and comes from two Greek words "poly" meaning many and "hedron" meaning face.
Tetrahedron
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Oval
You can play a little fast and loose with the rules of an oval as it's just any shape that tends to be egg-like. There are some more mathematical definitions of an oval when you start talking about things like a Cartesian oval or a Cassini oval.
Sphere
Cylinder
Prism
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Triskaidecagon
If triskaidecagon reminds you of the word triskaidecaphobia, it's because both of them are based on the number 13. Phobia is fear of the number 13 while a triskaidecagon is a polygon with 13 sides.
Heptagon
Pentagon
Tetradecagon
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Prism
Rhombus
Rectangle
A rectangle is one of the simplest shapes in geometry and one of the most useful. Boxes, bricks and planks of wood are generally all made in a rectangular shape so they've definitely proven their worth at least in terms of construction.
Torus
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Right
By definition a right angle is a 90-degree angle, so a right triangle is a triangle with one 90-degree angle. If the length of the sides are integers, then it also qualifies as a Pythagorean triangle as well.
Kepler
Parallel
Obtuse
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Rhomboid
Icosagon
Trapezoid
Torus
In technical terms you make a torus by "revolving a circle in three-dimensional space about an axis that is coplanar with the circle." In very simple terms it's a donut, or a three-dimensional ring. The plural is also tori, which is fun for anyone named Tori.
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Sphere
Tetrahedron
Polygon
Kite
A kite is a quadrilateral shape with two distinct pairs of sides that are of equal length and adjacent to each other. Put in other terms, you have a long triangle with the base against the base of a shorter triangle to make a kind of a skewed diamond. You can also call it a deltoid if you want.
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Tetrahedron
Megacube
Hypercube
A hypercube is what you call a four-dimensional shape analogous to a three-dimensional cube and a two-dimensional square. It's also known as a tesseract which you might remember from the "Avengers" movies. A cube has six square surfaces while a hypercube has eight cubed cells.
Dodecahedron
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Pentagon
The Pentagon is named for its five-sided shape, a pentagon. Though the shape does have an artificial quality to it, you can find it frequently in nature. For instance, if you cut a cross-section of okra it will be in a pentagon shape, and flowers like morning glories bloom in a pentagonal shape as well.
Hexagon
Octagon
Polyform
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Scalene
Pythagorean
Kepler
The squares of the sides of a Kepler triangle are in geometric progression according to the Golden Ratio. What's the Golden Ratio? Tha's what happens when the ratio of two quantities is the same as the ratio of their sum to the larger of the two quantities.
Eqyilateral
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Equialteral
Hexagram
Parallelogram
It makes sense that a parallelogram is defined by parallel sides. The opposing sides are of equal length and it's officially a rhomboid. It can't have a right angle or it'd be either a square or a rectangle.
Trapezoid
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Lozenge
Dodecahedron
If a shape has 12 faces on it, it's a dodecahedron. They come in a few varieties but a regular dodecahedron has 12 faces, 20 vertices, 30 edges, and 160 diagonals. It's a pretty common shape for dice in games like "Dungeons and Dragons."
Icosagon
Cyclic quadrilateral
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Megagon
Rhombus
Cylnder
Prism
In a non-geometrical way, a prism is just a transparent piece of glass or plastic that can refract light. In geometry it's any polyhedron shape connected with an identical shape by parallelograms on the corresponding sides. The base can be any shape like a pentagon or a hexagon.
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Tetrahedron
Nonagon
Hendecagon
A hendecagon is an 11-sided polygon that can sometimes go by the name undecagon or endecagon, though those aren't the best choices since they merge Greek and Latin. The internal angles of a hendecagon add up to 147 and 3/11 degrees in total.
Megagon
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Scalene
Acute
Obtuse
Isosceles
At least two sides of an isosceles triangle have to be the same length but not all three sides. That said, all three sides could be and that would make it an equilateral triangle and technically a different shape altogether.
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Hexagram
Oxagram
Pentagram
Pentagrams are sometimes called pentangles or pentalphas. They've been a popular shape throughout history used in ancient Sumerian cuneiform, Ancient Greece, Wicca symbolism and also associated with Satanism.
Tetradecagon
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Megagon
A megagon is the sort of shape you can't really draw and only exists in theory or computer models. With one million sides, if you were to draw one the size of the Earth itself it would still look like a perfect circle.
Decagon
Ultragon
Superhedron
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Lozenge
A lozenge can be a straight synonym for a rhombus, which is what is often referred to as a diamond. But usually, to distinguish it from a rhombus, it refers to a thin kind of rhombus with two acute and two obtuse angles.
Kite
Sphere
Ovoid
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Tetrahedron
Hexagon
Axis
Quadrilateral
Quadrilateral is a very basic term for a four-sided shape which can include squares, rectangles, parallelograms, kites or other irregular shapes. As long as they have four sides they qualify for the label.
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Trapezoid
Decagon
A decagon is a ten-sided polygon which, in a pinch, you can call a 10-gon. It's not a shape that gets used for many things, though you can find dinner plates or mirrors that are made in decagonal shapes now and then.
Icosagon
Crescent
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Tetrahedron
Cylinder
Cube
A cube is a very simple shape, the three-dimensional representation of a square with six even and identical faces. As far as three-dimensional shapes go, it's one of the most commonly used for blocks, boxes and tons of other things. Even salt naturally forms in cubes.
Parallelogram
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Nonagon
Raspagon
Icosagon
The 20-sided icosagon has internal angles that add up to 162 degrees. You may not have realized it but the Big Wheel on "The Price is Right" is an icosagon, meaning that geometry can really be worth something one day!
Heptadecagon
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Tetrahedron
A pyramid with a triangular base is also known as a tetrahedron. It has four triangular faces and six straight edges. It's the simplest kind of convex polyhedron and the only one that has fewer than five faces.
Rhomboid
Torus
Hexagon
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Oval
Sphere
A sphere is a three-dimensional representation of a circle. For a sphere to be perfect mathematically, every point on the surface has to be equidistant from the center. Planets and atoms are examples of spheres in nature.
Circle
Cylinder
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Cylinder
Crescent
The crescent shows up a lot throughout history. Because of the way lunar cycles work, the crescent moon is the most prominent example but it's also used as a symbol for Islam and, very often, the shape croissants are baked in.
Ovoid
Pentagram
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Pentangle
Prism
Lozenge
Trapezoid
A trapezoid is what you call this shape in North America but the rest of the world knows it as a trapezium. The sides can't be of equal length or otherwise you'd have a square plus two sets of parallel sides.
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Oblique
Pythagorean
Equilateral
All three sides of an equilateral triangle are of the same length. That in turn means that all the angles are equal at 60 degrees each. You can call this a regular triangle as well, and like many shapes it's a polygon.
Isosceles
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Convex regular dodecahedron
Triakis icosahedron
Great stellated dodecahedron
Most people will never run across a great stellated dodecahedron. Much the same as a square is analogous to a cube and a circle is analogous to a sphere, a pentagram is analogous to the great stellated dodecahedron.
Kleetope
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Cylinder
A cylinder is a pretty handy shape for holding things like Pepsi or beans, which is why so many cans are made as cylinders. It is essentially a circular prism. Cans are made in that shape because a cylinder is one of the most structurally sound shapes that exist.
Sphere
Cube
Cone
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Infinigon
N-gon
Apeirogon
This is one of those weird theoretical shapes that you're certainly never doodling on a napkin. It's still different from a circle which would have an infinite number of points that aren't necessarily sides, like what an apeirogon would have.
Gonagon
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