What are Shapes?
Shapes are an integral aspect of geometry. A shape is defined as an object with solid boundary lines, angles, and surfaces. We often come across different kinds of shapes that are either 2D or 3D. Common geometric shapes include books, laptops, frisbees and windows.
What are the Different Types of Shapes?
There are various kinds of shapes that are classified into the following categories. Shapes can be classified according to their sizes or whether they are open and closed shapes.
- Open Shapes: Figures with line segments or curves that do not connect at a point are referred to as open shapes.
- Closed shape: Figures with connected line segments or curves are referred to as closed shapes.
Closed shapes can now be further classified as two-dimensional and three-dimensional shapes.
- Two-dimensional shapes are shapes with flat surfaces and with two dimensions, length and width.
- Three-dimensional shapes are solid figures with dimensions such as length, width, and depth.
Names of a Few 2D Shapes
The following table shows a list of two-dimensional shapes along with their images:
Names of a Few 3D Shapes
The following table consists of a few 3D shapes:
Solved Examples on Shapes
Example 1:
Classify the following English letters into open and closed shapes.
C, H, O, D, B, U, S, V
Solution:
These letters can be termed as shapes that are either open or closed.
The letters with an open shape are C, H, U, S, and V. This is because their line segments or curves are not connected to each other.
The close shaped alphabets are O, D, and B as their line segments are connected together.
Example 2:
Name the shapes:
- Shape with six sides
- Shape with nine sides
- Shape that looks like a diamond
- Shape that looks like a basketball
Solution:
Let us have a look at the different shapes mentioned.
1. A shape with six sides is called a hexagon.
2. A shape with nine sides is called a nonagon.
3. A shape that looks like a diamond is called a kite.
4. A shape that looks like a basketball is called a sphere.
Example 3:
Matthew noticed the following shapes while going to school. Can you assist him in identifying these shapes?
Solution:
As we can see, the above images are of everyday objects that we often come across.
- The first object is a figure in the shape of a traffic cone.
- The second object is an eight-sided STOP sign. That is why it is an octagon.
- The third item is a cylindrical-shaped water can.
- The fourth item is a smartphone, and it looks like a cuboid.
Polygons are two-dimensional geometric shapes with connected straight sides. They produce flat-surfaced figures. The square is an example of a polygon.
The Rubik’s cube is a well-known example of a cube because it has three dimensions: length, width, and depth.
A heptagon is an eight-sided shape.