When should I use 'side' in relation to a cube/cuboid?

Suppose I have a cube, and want to number each side from 1 to 6 in the following fashion: "number X corresponds to the [name of side] of the cube".

Is there any guide to whether I should use the word side in relation to the front/back/left/right/top/bottom of the cube?

Here is what I think:

• Number 1 corresponds to the front/front side of the cube. I am not sure which is more idiomatic.

• Number 2 corresponds to the back/back side of the cube. I am not sure which is more idiomatic.

• Number 3 corresponds to the right side of the cube. I think I should use "right side" rather than just "right".

• Number 4 corresponds to the left side of the cube. Same as "right side"

• Number 5 corresponds to the top / top side of the cube. I am not sure which is more idiomatic.

• Number 6 corresponds to the bottom / bottom side of the cube. I am not sure which is more idiomatic.

I am only talking about the outer surfaces of the cube. The correct answer should be applicable to rectangular cuboids as well.

Side note: It seems there's a little bit of misunderstanding. I'm not asking whether the more correct term to refer to the surface of a cube should be "side" or "face". I'm asking whether one should drop the word "side" in the case of the phrases above considering you would need to present all 6 phrases (in a presentation for example).

Solution 1:

You didn't ask a question. I think you mean to ask what one would call these "sides": they are faces. As per Wolfram MathWorld:

• Face the intersection of an n-dimensional polytope with a tangent hyperplane.

It is common to refer to the front face, back face, left face, right face, top face, and bottom face of a cube.