A quadrilateral with one pair of parallel sides

A rectangle is a parallelogram with four right angles, so all rectangles are also parallelograms and quadrilaterals. On the other hand, not all quadrilaterals and parallelograms are rectangles.

A quadrilateral with one pair of parallel sides

A rectangle has all the properties of a parallelogram, plus the following:

  • The diagonals are congruent.

A rhombus is a parallelogram with four congruent sides. The plural of rhombus is rhombi . (I love that word.)

A quadrilateral with one pair of parallel sides

A rhombus has all the properties of a parallelogram, plus the following:

  • The diagonals intersect at right angles.

A square can be defined as a rhombus which is also a rectangle – in other words, a parallelogram with four congruent sides and four right angles.

A quadrilateral with one pair of parallel sides

A trapezoid is a quadrilateral with exactly one pair of parallel sides. (There may be some confusion about this word depending on which country you're in. In India and Britain, they say trapezium ; in America, trapezium usually means a quadrilateral with no parallel sides.)

A quadrilateral with one pair of parallel sides

An isosceles trapezoid is a trapezoid whose non-parallel sides are congruent.

A quadrilateral with one pair of parallel sides

A kite is a quadrilateral with exactly two pairs of adjacent congruent sides. (This definition excludes rhombi. Some textbooks say a kite has at least two pairs of adjacent congruent sides, so a rhombus is a special case of a kite.)

A quadrilateral with one pair of parallel sides

A scalene quadrilateral is a four-sided polygon that has no congruent sides. Three examples are shown below.

A quadrilateral with one pair of parallel sides


Venn Diagram of Quadrilateral Classification

The following Venn Diagram shows the inclusions and intersections of the various types of quadrilaterals.

Which quadrilaterals have one pair of parallel sides?

A trapezium is a quadrilateral that has only one pair of parallel sides.

What is a quadrilateral with parallel sides called?

A trapezoid is necessarily a convex quadrilateral in Euclidean geometry. The parallel sides are called the bases of the trapezoid. The other two sides are called the legs (or the lateral sides) if they are not parallel; otherwise, the trapezoid is a parallelogram, and there are two pairs of bases).