Envelope

An envelope is a packaging product, usually made of flat, planar material such as paper or cardboard, and designed to contain a flat object, which in a postal-service context is usually a letter, card or bills.  The traditional type is made from a sheet of paper cut to one of three shapes: the rhombus (also referred to as a lozenge or diamond), the short-arm cross, and the kite.  These designs ensure that in the course of envelope manufacture when the sides of the sheet are folded about a delineated central rectangular area, a rectangular-faced, usually oblong, enclosure is formed with an arrangement of four flaps on the reverse side, which, by virtue of the shapes of sheet traditionally used, is inevitably symmetrical.