pentagon
noun
Simple meaning
A polygon with five sides and five angles.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
pehntihgahnSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈpɛntɪɡɑn
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
geometry
A polygon with five sides and five angles.
geometry
A five-sided polygon
metonymic
A government building with five sides that serves as the headquarters of the United States Department of Defense
metonymic
The United States military establishment
military
A fort with five bastions.
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: A polygon with five sides and five angles.
Used this way, pentagon is a specialist word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. This is a mathematical use: it is defined precisely and belongs to working with figures and calculations rather than to ordinary conversation.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Specialist/technical
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Specialized
- Connotation
- Clinical and technical
- Usage feel
- Technical and specialized
Where it naturally appears
- Mathematics
- Geometry
- Academic writing
- Education/classroom
Usage note
In general conversation this sense usually needs explaining — outside its field, people reach for a plainer word.
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
Share your sentence
Use This Word
See how this word sounds in a real sentence.
Ask Vocabaura
Understand the word your way.
What Does It Mean Here?
Words can change meaning depending on context.
Use it yourself
Knowing “pentagon” starts when you use it. Pick a next step, all free.
Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.