triangle
noun
Simple meaning
A polygon with three sides and three angles.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
tryangguhlSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈtɹaɪæŋɡəl
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 three sides and three angles.
geometry
A three-sided polygon
music
A percussion instrument consisting of a metal bar bent in the shape of an open triangle
music
A percussion instrument made by forming a metal rod into a triangular shape which is open at one angle. It is suspended from a string and hit with a metal bar to make a resonant sound.
uscanada
A set square.
A place in the United States
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B2 · Upper Intermediate
- Frequency
- Common
- Typical Use
- Everyday English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: A polygon with three sides and three angles.
Used this way, triangle 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.
Nearby words
- trigon , rarer, so it draws attention
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
Share your sentence
Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
A triangle whose interior angles are all acute.
An area in the western Atlantic Ocean where many ships and planes are supposed to have been mysteriously lost.
A three-sided regular polygon.
A three-sided regular polygon.
A triangle with two equal sides.
A triangle that contains no right angle.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Synonyms
Sense: polygon with three sides and three angles
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 “triangle” 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.