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What are Shapes?
In geometry, a shape can be defined as the form of an object or its outline, outer boundary or outer surface.
Everything we see in the world around us has a shape. We can find different basic shapes such as the two-dimensional square, rectangle, and oval or the three-dimensional rectangular prism, cylinder, and sphere in the objects we see around us. These geometric shapes appear in objects we see as credit cards, bills and coins, finger rings, photo frames, dart boards, huts, windows, magician’s wands, tall buildings, flower pots, toy trains, and balloons.
Different Types of Shapes
Shapes can be classified into open and closed shapes.
Closed geometric shapes can further be put into two broad categories, namely two-dimensional and three-dimensional shapes.
Here’s a list of 2-D or two-dimensional shapes with their names and pictures:
Name of the shape : | Picture of the shape : |
Circle | ![]() |
Semi - circle | ![]() |
Oval | ![]() |
Triangle | ![]() |
Square | ![]() |
Rectangle | ![]() |
Parallelogram | ![]() |
Rhombus | ![]() |
Trapezium | ![]() |
Kite | ![]() |
Pentagon | ![]() |
Hexagon | ![]() |
Heptagon | ![]() |
Octagon | ![]() |
Nonagon | ![]() |
Decagon | ![]() |
Here’s a list of 3-D or three-dimensional shapes with their names and pictures:
Name of the shape : | Picture of the shape : |
Sphere | ![]() |
Cube | ![]() |
Cuboid or Rectangular Prism | ![]() |
Cone | ![]() |
Cylinder | ![]() |
The color, overall size, and orientation, called the non-defining attributes of a two-dimensional or three-dimensional shape, do not define or affect the shape in any way. These attributes can change without any effect on the shape.
On the other hand, defining attributes such as the number of sides (parallel or non-parallel, straight or curved), vertices, edges and faces of a shape, whether the shape is open or closed, and the angle measures determine the shape of a two-dimensional or three-dimensional object. Any change in these defining attributes will change the shape.