beach towel
5
1.0
- noun
- /biːtʃ taʊəl/
:
toalla de playa
- Don't forget to bring a beach towel for drying off after your swim in the pool.
- a striped beach towel
- spread out a beach towel
- sit on a beach towel
But we don't have to take this lying down on our beach towels.
- But we don't have to take this lying down on our beach towels.
- Surplus conversations repurposed in clotheslines resplendent with beach towels.
Examples
-
I was wrapped in a beach towel, chlorine fumes blessing me with the way winter could smell like summer.
Fiction book (2000) -
We spread out our beach towels on the sand to relax under the sun.
-
Guy brings a beach towel.
-
Renko lay down on the beach towel and closed his eyes.
Fiction book (1999) -
Grandpa carried a beach towel and a big new red-and-white beach umbrella.
Fiction book (1997) -
Then we've got a whole box here for beach toys, beach towels, diving toys, things like that.
-
The twins, Donna and Debbie, are holding striped beach towels.
Fiction book (2002) -
On the rails of the balconies of the condominiums, bright beach towels hang drying in the breeze.
Fiction book (2002) -
Shelley scoots her beach towel closer to where her head nearly touches the spray of Dena's hair.
Fiction book (1992) -
After swimming in the ocean, I used my beach towel to dry off before heading home.
Synonyms
4
1.0
A large cloth that dries your body after a bath or shower
1
3.5
A thick cloth from Turkey that dries your body after a bath
A towel made of thick cloth with many small loops that soaks up water
How Big
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'a large towel used to dry oneself after swimming at the beach' is directly and transparently built from 'beach' (shore) + 'towel' (absorbent cloth); there is no idiomatic shift. This straightforward noun–noun composition is cross-linguistically common (e.g., toalla de playa), so a B1 learner who knows both constituents will readily infer the meaning.
Etymology
Beach towel comes from the simple idea of a towel made for the beach: people spread a large, often bright towel on the sand to lie on or use it to dry off after swimming. So, it means 'a large towel used to dry oneself after swimming, especially at the beach'.