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[onsenjapan.net](http://www.onsenjapan.net/glossary.php) claims that タオル is
used for "towel", presumably the large one. When I asked a staff member at
Odeo onsen "これ は 何 ですか?" while indicating the large towel I was holding, the
staff member said "タオル".

I'm not 100% convinced, though. I half suspect that the glossary (and the
staff member) may have chosen a gairaigo term over more traditional terms
since it'd be easier for foreigners to remember. Also, in English the terms
"large towel" and "small towel" feel very clumsy to me, so I would have
thought that Japanese would have kept its existing words for the large towel
and small towel.

I tried seeing if towel was mentioned in
[http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/温泉](http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%B8%A9%E6%B3%89)
, but unlike the English-language version it didn't (obviously only foreigners
need to google how to use an onsen!). Other pages I tried looking at were
[this](http://en.visit-hokkaido.jp/forAgent/media/brochures/onsen_13-14.pdf),
[this](http://everything2.com/title/A+beginner%2527s+guide+to+Onsen),
[this](http://www.japaninfoswap.com/blog/index.php?/archives/46-Hot-Spring-
Etiquette.html), and
[this](http://onsensoaker.blogspot.com.au/2009/06/general-info-part1-onsen-
glossary.html) \- the fact that towels don't appear in those glossaries would
be consistent with it being plain old boring gairaigo, and that Japanese
doesn't have special onsen-related terminology for towels.

Is タオル used for the towels used at onsen, both the large towel and the small
one, or are other words used as well?
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words loanwords
Is タオル used for the towels used at onsen?
I think they can be just called タオル. I never heard other ways to refer to that
when I was in Japan.

However, to make sure, I check
[amazon](http://www.amazon.co.jp/s/ref=sr_ex_n_1?rh=k%3a%E3%82%BF%E3%82%AA%E3%83%AB,n:3828871&bbn=3828871&keywords=%E3%82%BF%E3%82%AA%E3%83%AB&ie=UTF8&qid=1336653070),
which I usually do when I'm not sure the name of something in everyday lift.
In the link, you can find in "categories"(カテゴリー, on the left side): バスタオル,
フェイスタオル, ハンドタオル, or just タオル. So I think they can all just be called タオル. The
large towels used in onsen can also be called バスタオル, if it is to be
distinguished with other kinds of towels.
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Towels were introduced in the Meiji era and were almost exclusively imported
from England. That's why the word タオル came from English, and there is no other
word for them (although Japan of course had their own fabrics before that (I'm
specifically talking about terrycloth)).
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There's a word [手拭{てぬぐい}](http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%89%8B%E6%8B%AD),
which literally means hand-wipe.

From the Wikipedia article, I gather that this was mainly used in place of the
current "小さいタオル", i.e. to wash yourself in the bath, or to dry your face or
hands. I wasn't able to solve the mystery of how people dried their _bodies_
after bathing pre-Meiji.

Now, I think people would use タオル for anything, at least if it's made of towel
cloth, and only 手拭 to stress the fact that something is made of traditional or
non-towel cloth.
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