towel

Syllables: tow·el/ˈtæʊ̯əl//ˈtaʊ̯əl/

towel noun: a cloth used for wiping, especially one used for drying anything wet, such as a person after a bath.

Image: Jessica F, CC BY 2.5, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

towel (plural towels)

A cloth used for wiping, especially one used for drying anything wet, such as a person after a bath.
- He needed a towel for wiping the slippery floor.

Verb

towel (third-person singular simple present towels, present participle (US) toweling or (UK) towelling, simple past and past participle (US) toweled or (UK) towelled)

(transitive) To dry by using a towel.
- He got out of the shower and toweled himself dry.
(transitive) To hit with a towel.
(transitive) To block up (a door, etc.) with a towel, to conceal the fumes of a recreational drug.
- We would open the windows, towel the door, and turn my bedroom into an Allman Brothers concert.2012, Dave Tomar, The Shadow Scholar: How I Made a Living Helping College Kids Cheat
(UK, dialectal, obsolete, transitive) To beat with a stick, or "oaken towel".

towel meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Urdu and Bengali

towel in Hindi

cloth used for wiping: तौलिया tauliyā, अँगौछा aṅgauchā

towel in Tamil

cloth used for wiping: துவாலை tuvālai, துண்டு tuṇṭu

towel in Urdu

cloth used for wiping: تَولِیَہ tauliya, آبچِین ābcīn, اَن٘گوچھا aṅgochā

towel in Bengali

cloth used for wiping: তোয়ালে tōẇale

More languagesFewer languages

towel in Telugu: తువాలు tuvālu
towel in Malayalam: തൂവാല tūvāla
towel in Kannada: ಟವಲ್ ṭaval
towel in Punjabi: ਤੌਲੀਆ taulīā
towel in Gujarati: ટુવાલ ṭuvāl
towel in Odia: ତଉଲିଆ tauliā
towel in Sinhala: තුවා tuwā
towel in Nepali: तौलिया tauliyā
towel in Pashto: دست پاک dast pãk, دستمال dastmãl, توليا tawlyã, توليه tawlyá
towel in Tagalog: tuwalya
towel in Arabic: مِنْشَفَة minšafa
towel in Malay: tuala
towel in Indonesian: handuk
towel in Thai: ผ้าขนหนู pâa-kǒn-nǔu, ผ้าเช็ดตัว pâa-chét-dtuua
towel in Vietnamese: khăn
towel in Myanmar: မျက်နှာသုတ်ပဝါ myakhnasutpa.wa

Examples of towel in a sentence

Those paper towels were amazingly absorbent. That was quite a spill.
I didn’t have a towel so I just wrung my hair dry.
Socks can’t be boiled up in the copper with the sheets and towels or they shrink.

All 40 example sentences with towel

Forms of towel

Noun
plural	towels
Verb
third-person singular present	towels
present participle US	toweling
present participle UK	towelling
past participle US	toweled
past US	toweled
past participle UK	towelled
past UK	towelled

Plural of towel: towels

Origin of towel

From Middle English towayle, towel, towail, towaille, from Old French toaille (“towel”) (modern French touaille), Medieval Latin toallia, from Frankish *þwahilu (“cloth”), from Proto-Germanic *þwahaną (“to wash”). Cognate with Old High German dwahila (“towel”) (modern dialectal German Zwehle), Dutch dwaal (“towel”), dweil (“mop”), Low German Dweel (“towel”), Old English þwǣle (“band; ribbon; fillet”), Old English þwēan (“to wash”).

Phrases with towel

Words that rhyme with towel

15 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about towel

What does towel mean?: Towel means a cloth used for wiping, especially one used for drying anything wet, such as a person after a bath.
What is towel in Hindi?: Towel in Hindi is तौलिया (tauliyā), अँगौछा (aṅgauchā). See Towel meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is towel?: Towel can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce towel?: Towel is pronounced /ˈtaʊ̯əl/ (UK).
What is the plural of towel?: The plural of towel is towels.

Words near towel in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: towel (page history and authors); ତଉଲିଆ (Odia) (page history and authors); तौलिया (Nepali) (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.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-towel.ogg, En-uk-towel.ogg.

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