Right triangle a right triangle. For a given angle, a right triangle may be constructed with this angle, and the sides labeled opposite, adjacent and hypotenuse with reference to this angle according to the definitions above. These ratios of the sides do not depend on the particular right triangle chosen, but only on the given angle, since all triangles constructed this way are similar. If, for a given angle α, the opposite side, adjacent side and hypotenuse are labeled "O", "A" and "H" respectively, then the trigonometric functions are For the expression of hyperbolic functions as ratio of the sides of a
Pappus's area theorem rather than only for right angled ones and secondly it uses parallelograms rather than squares. For squares on two sides of an arbitrary triangle it yields a parallelogram of equal area over the third side and if the two sides are the legs of a right angle the parallelogram over the third side will be square as well. For a right-angled triangle, two parallelograms attached to the legs of the right angle yield a rectangle of equal area on the third side and again if the two parallelograms are squares then the rectangle on the third side will be a