means A piece of absorbent cloth or paper used to dry or wipe something, most often your wet skin or hands.

from From Old French 'toaille,' meaning a cloth for wiping, which English borrowed in the medieval period. The French word itself was taken from a Germanic source — related to Old High German 'twahila,' from a root meaning 'to wash,' a cousin of the same family that gave German 'zwehle.' So the towel has, from the very start, been bound up with the act of washing and drying.