Word.ws English Dictionary

brought to heel

brought to heel is the simple past and past participle of bring to heel.

Meaning of bring to heel

Verb

bring to heel (third-person singular simple present brings to heel, present participle bringing to heel, simple past and past participle brought to heel)

  1. (idiomatic, transitive) To compel someone to obey; to force someone into a submissive condition.
    • They wanted a lesson, and they would get it; but it would take three months at least to bring them to heel.1906, John Galsworthy, chapter 12, in The Forsyte Saga, Part I
  2. (idiomatic, transitive) To cause to act in a disciplined manner.

Questions about brought to heel

What is brought to heel the simple past and past participle of?
Brought to heel is the simple past and past participle of bring to heel.

Words near brought to heel in the dictionary

  1. brought to a head
  2. brought to an end
  3. brought to bear
  4. brought to bed
  5. brought to ground
  6. brought to heel
  7. brought to justice
  8. brought to life
  9. brought to light
  10. brought to mind
  11. brought to naught

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: brought to heel (page history and authors); bring to heel (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “brought to heel.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/brought_to_heel. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.