Parts of a Mop – Handle, Headband, Yarn, Wringer

All 10 parts on the diagram

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The mop 5

Handle The long pole, made of wood or metal tubing.
Jaws The clamp on the handle that grips the mop head.
Headband The band sewn across the yarn, where the jaws grip.
Yarn The coarse strings, of cotton or a man-made fiber.
Tailband A tape sewn across the yarn near its ends.

The bucket and wringer 5

Mop head The headband, yarn and tailband together; it comes off the handle.
Bucket The deep tub the mop head is dipped in.
Wringer It presses the mop head so the liquid runs into the bucket.
Wringer handle Pushing it down works the wringer.
Casters Small wheels under the bucket so it rolls across the floor.

How this list was compiled: Every name checked on 2026-09-30, a name kept only where two independent sources use it. (1) Wikipedia, text only: Mop (strings or yarn on a pole, the mop head, the handle and its clamp, the bucket with its wringer), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mop. (2) How Products Are Made, Mop (mop head, handle, yarn), http://www.madehow.com/Volume-7/Mop.html. (3) Three janitorial supply catalogs from three suppliers, read as text on the Internet Archive (headband, tailband, yarn, jaws, wringer, casters): https://archive.org/details/manualzz-id-795149, https://archive.org/details/manualzilla-id-7372362, https://archive.org/details/manualzilla-id-7326452. (4) Good School Maintenance, a manual for school building staff (1996) (mop head, mop handle, bucket, wringer, wringer handle), https://archive.org/details/micro_IA41153411_0652; the wringer handle is also named in Wet Mopping: Procedures for the Building-Service Worker (1985), read as full-text search passages, https://archive.org/details/wetmoppingproced00unse. Hints and detail lines are in our own words. Licence: own work

The drawing: Drawn for this site on 2026-09-30 from plain geometry; no maker's product, nothing traced. Licence: own work

How it works

A mop is a bundle of coarse yarn on a pole, used to soak up liquid and clean floors. This drawing names five parts of a string mop, then five more on its bucket.

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The mop, then the bucket

A mop has three main parts: the handle, the mop head, and the piece that joins them. On this mop that piece is a pair of jaws, which clamp on the headband. The yarn is sewn to the headband, and a tailband crosses it near the ends. The bucket rolls on casters. A wringer hangs on it; pushing the wringer handle down squeezes the mop head.

Headband or tailband? The headband is the wide one in the jaws; the tailband is the narrow one near the ends.
Two handles: the long one on the mop, and the lever on the wringer.

Questions and answers

What are the parts of a mop called?

The handle, the mop head, and the jaws or clamp that join them. On a string mop the head is made of yarn sewn to a headband, often with a tailband near the ends.

What is the stringy part of a mop called?

The mop head. Its strands are called yarn, or strings. On many mops the head comes off the handle, so it can be washed or replaced when it wears.

What is the top of a mop head called?

The headband. It is the band sewn across the middle of the yarn, and it is the part the jaws on the handle grip.

What is the thing that squeezes a mop called?

A wringer, or mop wringer. It hangs on the mop bucket and presses the liquid out of the mop head when its handle is pushed down.