Napkin

A napkin—also called a serviette or face towelette—is a square piece of cloth or paper tissue used at the table to wipe the mouth and fingers during a meal. It can also serve as a bib when tucked into a shirt collar. Typically small and folded, napkins may appear in elaborate designs, colors, and shapes. The word entered English in the 14th century, coming from Late Middle English *nappekin*, which itself derives from Old French *nappe* (meaning tablecloth, from Latin *mappa*) plus the suffix *-kin*.

In British dialect, "napkin" can refer to a small cloth or towel, such as a handkerchief, and in Scotland, to a kerchief. The term is also used as a short form for "sanitary napkin." Conventionally, a napkin is folded and placed to the left of the place setting, outside the outermost fork. In restaurants or catered events, it may be folded into elaborate shapes and displayed on an empty plate, sometimes using origami techniques for three-dimensional effects. A napkin ring can bundle it with cutlery, while paper napkins are often kept in a napkin holder.

The ancient Greeks used *apomagdalia*—bread, dough, or fat—to wipe themselves, sometimes tossing it to dogs (the term also referred to dog food made from dough and fat). Later, they adopted the *cheiromaktron* ("hand-wipe"), a cloth for drying hands, which the Romans called *mantelium*. One of the earliest English references to table napkins dates to 1384–85.

Paper napkins have a long history: in ancient China, where paper was invented in the 2nd century BC, they were known as *chih pha*, folded into squares and used for serving tea. Textual evidence appears in a description of the Yu family’s possessions from Hangzhou. Paper napkins were first imported to the United States in the late 1800s but only became widely accepted after 1948, when etiquette expert Emily Post stated that using paper napkins was far better form than using linen napkins that had already been used at breakfast.

A claim that Leonardo da Vinci invented the napkin in 1491 is a myth. The story—that the Duke of Milan, Ludovico Sforza, tied live rabbits to guests’ chairs for hand-wiping, and Leonardo replaced them with individual cloths—originates from the 1987 prank book *Leonardo's Kitchen Notebooks* by Jonathan and Shelagh Routh, published as an April Fools’ joke. The book falsely cites a nonexistent Codex Romanoff supposedly found in 1481.