Word.ws English Dictionary

tea cloth

tea cloth noun: a tea towel.

tea cloth: a tea towel
Image: Frank C. Müller, Baden-Baden, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

tea cloth (plural tea cloths)

  1. A tea towel.
  2. A small tablecloth.

Forms of tea cloth

pluraltea cloths
alternative formteacloth

Origin of tea cloth

From tea + cloth; originally designating a cloth for wiping tea service items after washing, later a small tablecloth useful for afternoon tea. Attested from the late 18th century. Compare later tea towel.

Questions about tea cloth

What does tea cloth mean?
Tea cloth means a tea towel.
What part of speech is tea cloth?
Tea cloth is a noun.
What is the plural of tea cloth?
The plural of tea cloth is tea cloths.

Words near tea cloth in the dictionary

  1. tea chests
  2. tea clam
  3. tea clams
  4. tea clipper
  5. tea clippers
  6. tea cloth
  7. tea cloths
  8. tea cosey
  9. tea cosies
  10. tea cosy
  11. tea cozies

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: tea cloth (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “tea cloth.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/tea_cloth. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.