Word.ws English Dictionary

Terrible Towel

Terrible Towel noun: a golden-yellow rally towel with the words "Terrible Towel" emblazoned on it; created by Pittsburgh Steelers football broadcaster Myron Cope.

terrible towel: a golden-yellow rally towel with the words "Terrible Towel" emblazoned on it; created by Pittsburgh...
Image: SteelCityHobbies, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

Terrible Towel (plural Terrible Towels)

  1. A golden-yellow rally towel with the words "Terrible Towel" emblazoned on it; created by Pittsburgh Steelers football broadcaster Myron Cope.

Forms of Terrible Towel

pluralTerrible Towels

Origin of Terrible Towel

From terrible + towel. Coined by Pittsburgh Steelers football broadcaster Myron Cope, who was quoted saying, "We’ll call it the Terrible Towel, and it will wreak its powers terribly on the opposition."

Questions about Terrible Towel

What does Terrible Towel mean?
Terrible Towel means a golden-yellow rally towel with the words "Terrible Towel" emblazoned on it; created by Pittsburgh Steelers football broadcaster Myron Cope.
What part of speech is Terrible Towel?
Terrible Towel is a noun.
What is the plural of Terrible Towel?
The plural of Terrible Towel is Terrible Towels.

Words near Terrible Towel in the dictionary

  1. terrible
  2. terrible infant
  3. terrible infants
  4. terrible lizard
  5. terrible lizards
  6. Terrible Towel
  7. terrible twos
  8. terribleness
  9. terriblenesses
  10. terribler
  11. terriblest

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Terrible Towel (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: “Terrible Towel.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/terrible_towel. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.