A napkin or serviette is a rectangle of cloth or rag given to at the table for wiping the mouth while eating. It is usually baby and folded. The adage comes from Mainstream English, Italian Linens borrowing the French nappe—a cloth covering for a table—and adding -kin, the diminutive suffix.

A napkin is also a inadequate scarf placed on the head by a broad entering a Roman Catholic Church as a conventional token of modesty. This practice is largely extinct in concomitant times.