@Satsuma i differentiate between these terms and own/use both a dish rag and a dish towel, but i would never call a dish towel a dish towel, i would just call it a towel (or kitchen towel if one needed to be specific)

i would consider tea towel to be a subset of dish towel although again in practice i would never actually say that word

@Satsuma NONSENSE FOR THE NONSENSE GOD

@Satsuma I have never used the term "dish rag" (I assume that's for cleaning?) but in our house we have kitchen towels (for drying hands) and dish/drying cloth. And I have a few tea towels but they are almost always souvenirs and thus decorative.

...oh, the drying/dish cloth is also the one that gets used like cheesecloth for straining certain things like shredded vegetables for latkes.

@Satsuma I voted "other" - I know what a tea towel is and I use them, but I don't know what a dish rag or a dish towel are.

@Satsuma Dish cloth to clean things, tea towel to dry them

@Satsuma Wait who the hell says dish rag (or alternatively: dish rag is the cloth you *wash* with, which I don't do because I use a brush, and the other two, which I both know but don't differentiate between, are cloths you *dry* with)

@Satsuma I voted for "who the hell says tea towel" even though now I have to say tea towel because I live in a country that does. But I still think it's a dish towel in my head (and I think that's very different from a dish rag, so I voted accordingly).

@Satsuma Dish rags (which can also be called dish cloths) are for washing dishes. Tea towels (which can also be called dish towels) are for drying dishes. Two different things. But not three.

I use tea towels. I don't use dish cloths.