

Engineers use angles to build freeways and bridges, carpenters use angles to build structures such as houses. Whenever you look up to the sky to spot a plane flying overhead, you create an angle of elevation between a horizontal line at your eye level with the line of sight to the plane. Below are the names of angles based on their measure, as well as figures of what they look like:Īngles are everywhere. The measure of an angle also determines what it is called. In typical Geometry courses, angles have a measure greater than or equal to 0° and less than or equal to 180°. Angles ∠VXW and ∠ZXW are called adjacent angles because they share a common side or ray and vertex but have no common points in their interiors. Notice the vertex at T for the angle is placed in the middle when the angle is named by the endpoints.Īngles can also be named using lower case letters, Greek letters, or even numbers.īe careful not to name any of the 3 angles as only ∠X since X is the vertex to all 3 of the angles. So, the angle above can be named as ∠STU or ∠UTS, where ∠ is the angle symbol. We can name an angle by the endpoints of the line segments that form it.
Whats the terminal side of an angle how to#
Click here to see how to use a protractor to measure an angle or draw an angle with a certain measurement. One way to measure an angle is with a tool called a protractor. There are different ways to measure angles.

Here's another angle, formed by line segments TU and TS, that has a measure of 120°. While we can create an angle by rotating a line or line segment around an endpoint, most of the angles we will look at are already formed by two rays or line segments that share a common endpoint. Below is an angle formed by rotating a line segment around its left endpoint 45° counterclockwise as noted by the circular arc in red. The amount of the turn is typically measured in degrees (°).Īngles can also be formed by rotating a line segment around one of its endpoints. The measure of an angle is the amount of turn or rotation from its initial side to the terminal side. Below is an angle formed by rotating a line segment around its left endpoint 45 counterclockwise. Angles can also be formed by rotating a line segment around one of its endpoints.

The amount of the turn is typically measured in degrees (). The endpoint that the ray is rotated around to form the angle is called the vertex. The measure of an angle is the amount of turn or rotation from its initial side to the terminal side. The initial side of an angle is the beginning position of the ray and the terminal side is the position of the ray after it is rotated. An angle is formed by rotating a ray around its endpoint.
