Other forms: napkins
A napkin is the square of cloth or paper you put on your lap and wipe your mouth with at the table. Folded beside the fork in a restaurant, or a thin paper one handed over with a burger.
In Britain many people call it a serviette, and which word you choose has long been a quiet class marker — napkin is the safer one if you are unsure. In America it is napkin and nothing else. You will meet paper napkin, cloth napkin, napkin ring and napkin holder, and the phrase 'worked out on the back of a napkin' for a plan sketched roughly over lunch. Watch the family around the word: a nappy in Britain is what an American calls a diaper, and 'sanitary napkin' is the American term for a sanitary towel. Napkin on its own, at a table, is safe everywhere.
1nounnapkinA square of cloth or paper used at the table to protect your clothes and wipe your mouth.
“He shook out the napkin and laid it across his knees.”
Patterna paper / linen napkin · fold / unfold a napkin · a napkin ring · dab with a napkin
synonyms: serviette
2nounwordAn older word for a cloth worn by a baby, the full form behind nappy.
“The nursery list asked for a dozen napkins and two shawls.”
napkin is a square of cloth or paper.
Also accepted in games: serviette
NAPkin → the cloth that takes a NAP on your lap
It lies folded on your lap through the whole dinner, taking a nap, and wakes up only when you need to wipe your mouth.
hooks ontonap
Napkin is nape plus -kin, the ending that makes a thing small — the same -kin that turns a lamb into a lambkin. The nape here is not the back of the neck but an old word for a cloth, the one that also gave us napery. Middle English wrote it napekyn: a little cloth.
Middle English
napekyn
English, today
napkin
From Middle English napekyn, napkyn, equivalent to nape + kin.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA