Tea towel : nm (word coming from twist). A tea towel is a piece of cloth used to wipe dishes, furniture.
Wipe: hard blow; fight, sharp altercation.
We must not mix tea towels and napkins: we must separate, treat people differently according to their social condition, things according to their value.
The rag burns (between two or more people): there is disagreement, the atmosphere is disputed (there is water in the gas).
Between them, the rag burns: discord sets in; domestic quarrel (see the origin of this expression below).
Written without value. This diary is a real mess.
Very poorly presented text: Look at this rag!
To be made like a rag: to be badly dressed.
Cloth: dirty public girl; dirty cooker, slut of the kitchen.
Wipe out: shootout; rifle shots, saber blows.
Giving each other a wipe, fighting a duel with knives, fighting against the enemy (troopers' jargon).
Give yourself a wipe: torch.
At sea, a rag is a violent and sudden wind.
To give oneself / to spin oneself / to flank one another a wipe: to bicker.
Wipe the rag: to fight, to brawl.
To give a wipe of the cloth: to kiss.
Cloth: badly groomed woman, not clean. It's a rag: it's a slut.
Being astride a cloth: having your period.
Meat in the rag: sleep with a woman.
The expression “the rag is burning”: discord sets in, most often reigns within a couple; household quarrel.
Le Historical dictionary of the French language indicates that the first meaning of the word torchon in the XNUMXth century corresponded to a blow that one gives. Hence the connection with the fight that erupts when the cloth burns.
As to Dictionary of the French Academy of 1798, he says this: “Torchon is also said in the sense of Torche. From there the popular proverb, The cloth burns between them or simply The cloth burns, to say there is between them a lit subject of discord”.
For the French novelist and translator, historian of language, Claude Duneton (1935-2012), the expression would be a double play on words.