heel
UK/hiːl//hil/
heel noun: the rear part of the foot, where it joins the leg. Also the alternative form of hele.
Noun (1)
heel (plural heels)
- The rear part of the foot, where it joins the leg.
- He [the stag] calls to mind his strength and then his speed, / His winged heels and then his armed head.1709, John Denham, Coopers-Hill
- The part of a shoe's sole which supports the foot's heel.
- The rear part of a sock or similar covering for the foot.
- The part of the palm of a hand closest to the wrist.
- He drove the heel of his hand into the man's nose.
- A high-heeled shoe.
- She'd been wearing heels, and fell backward off her right heel and twisted or broke her ankle.2008, Kwame Shauku, Wonderful Williams and the Magnificent Seven, page 257
- Opting to improve her odds of making it up the stairs and into the privacy of her room, she kicked off her left heel, and then her right before leaning down to scoop them up.2011, Candace Irvine, A Dangerous Engagement
- The back, upper part of the stock.
- The thickening of the neck of a stringed instrument where it attaches to the body.
- The last or lowest part of anything.
- the heel of a mast
- the heel of a vessel
- A crust end-piece of a loaf of bread.
- the heel of the white loaf1814 July 7, [Walter Scott], Waverley; or, ’Tis Sixty Years Since. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), Edinburgh: […] James Ballantyne and Co. for Archibald Constable and Co.; London...
- Boiled mutton was in one, and the heel of a damper in another.1902, Barbara Baynton, edited by Sally Krimmer and Alan Lawson, Bush Studies (Portable Australian Authors: Barbara Baynton), St Lucia: University of Queensland Press, published 1980, page 32
- The base of a bun sliced in half lengthwise.
- The bottom half, or the bun heel is placed in the carton, and the pickle slices spread evenly over the meat or cheese.1996, Ester Reiter, Making Fast Food: From the Frying Pan Into the Fryer, page 100
- A contemptible, unscrupulous, inconsiderate, or thoughtless person.
- I grinned at him sneeringly. I was the heel to end all heels. Wait until the man is down, then kick him and kick him again. He's weak. He can't resist or kick back.1953, Raymond Chandler, chapter 29, in The Long Goodbye
- She should be glad to have him on her side. So why did Godshawk's memories, grumbling again in that substrate of her brain, keep reminding her of heels he'd known, and tricksters?2011, Philip Reeve, Scrivener's Moon, Scholastic, →ISBN, pages 361–362
- A headlining wrestler regarded as a "bad guy," whose ring persona embodies villainous or reprehensible traits and demonstrates characteristics of a braggart and a bully.
- Freedman began his analysis by noting two important facts about professional wrestling: First, that heels triumph considerably more often than do babyfaces[…]1992, Bruce Lincoln, Discourse and the Construction of Society, page 158
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- The cards set aside for later use in a patience or solitaire game.
- Anything resembling a human heel in shape; a protuberance; a knob.
- The lower end of a timber in a frame, as a post or rafter.
- The obtuse angle of the lower end of a rafter set sloping.
- A cyma reversa.
- Of these there are two Kinds; in the one, that Part which has the greatest Projecture is Concave, and is term'd Doucine, or an Upright Ogee; in the other, the Convex Part has the greatest Projecture; and this is call'd the Heel, or Inverted Ogee.1722, Claude Perrault, A Treatise of the Five Orders in Architecture, page vii
- There are two kinds—the upright ogee, in which the concave part projects most, and the heel or inverted ogee, which has the convexity most prominent. This last, with its fillet above, is always the upper moulding of a classical cornice.1846, George William Francis, The Dictionary of the Arts, Sciences, and Manufactures
- The short side of an angled cut.
- The part of a club head's face nearest the shaft.
- The lower end of the bit (cutting edge) of an axehead, as opposed to the toe (upper end).
- The part of a carding machine's flat nearest the cylinder.
- The junction between the keel and the stempost of a vessel; an angular wooden join connecting the two.
- Material stored in a smelting furnace between batches
Verb (1)
heel (third-person singular simple present heels, present participle heeling, simple past and past participle heeled)
- To follow at somebody's heels; to chase closely.
- She called to her dog to heel.
- To cause to follow at somebody’s heels (transitive).
- To add a heel to, or increase the size of the heel of (a shoe or boot).
- So I laid down my knittin', an' got up, an' stole ovir to the banes, an' nivir believe me iv I didn't see, sittin' right forenint me, in the very middle of thim, a bit of an ould man, not a quarther so big as a new-born child, wid a little cocked hat an his head, an' a dudeen in his mouth, smokin'...1850, Thomas Keightley, The Fairy Mythology, London: H.G. Bohn, page 378
- To kick with the heel.
- she heeled her horse forward
- To perform by the use of the heels, as in dancing, running, etc.
- I cannot sing,
Nor heel the high lavolt.c. 1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Troylus and Cressida”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and...
- I cannot sing,
- To arm with a gaff, as a cock for fighting.
- To hit (the ball) with the heel of the club.
- To make (a fair catch) standing with one foot forward, the heel on the ground and the toe up.
- At Yale University, to work as a heeler or student journalist.
Verb (2)
heel (third-person singular simple present heels, present participle heeling, simple past and past participle heeled)
Noun (2)
heel (plural heels)
Proper noun capitalized: Heel
Heel
- A part of Maasgouw in the Netherlands
Also used as
heel is also the alternative form of hele.
heel meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu
heel in Hindi
- anatomy: part of the foot
- एड़ी eṛī, एड़ eṛ
- part of shoe
- एड़ी eṛī
heel in Tamil
- anatomy: part of the foot
- குதிக்கால் kutikkāl
heel in Marathi
- टाच
heel in Urdu
- anatomy: part of the foot
- ایڑی eṛī, ایڑ eṛ
More languagesFewer languages
- heel in Bengali
- এড়ি eṛi
- heel in Telugu
- మడమ maḍama
- heel in Malayalam
- ഉപ്പുകുറ്റി uppukuṟṟi
- heel in Kannada
- ಹಿಮ್ಮಡಿ, ಹೀಲ್
- heel in Punjabi
- ਅੱਡੀ aḍḍī
- heel in Gujarati
- હીલ
- heel in Sanskrit
- पार्ष्णि pārṣṇi
- heel in Sinhala
- අඩිය aḍiya
- heel in Assamese
- গেৰোৱা gerüa
- heel in Nepali
- कुर्कुच्चा kurkuccā
- heel in Pashto
- پونده punda
- heel in Tagalog
- sakong, sakong ng medyas
- heel in Arabic
- عَقِب ʕaqib, كَعْب kaʕb, كعب kaʕb
- heel in Malay
- tumit
- heel in Indonesian
- tumit, tumit kaki
- heel in Persian
- پاشنه pâšne, پاشنه کفش pâšne-ye kafš
- heel in Thai
- ส้น sôn, ส้นเท้า sôn-táao
- heel in Vietnamese
- gót, gót chân, gót giày
- heel in Myanmar
- ခြေဖနောင့် hkrehpa.naung., ရှူးဖိနပ်တို့၏ခွာ hru:hpi.naptui.ehkwa
Examples of heel in a sentence
- As she pushed off her left heel and pressed the sole of her foot to the cold floor she looked forward to them.2015, Alex Blackmore, Killing Eva:
- And then again the sportsmen would move at an undertaker's pace, when the fox had traversed and the hounds would be at a loss to know which was the hunt and which was the heel1860, Anthony Trollope, Framley Parsonage:
- `Have ye seen,' said Uncle Jobson with basilisk severity, `what's become of the heel of to-day's loaf?'1930, Norman Lindsay, Redheap, Sydney, N.S.W.: Ure Smith, →OCLC, page 42:
- Douglas steams and stammers, a typical film noir heel, while Stone delivers her dialogue with the devilish gleam of a sly actor having a great time.2022 March 20, Jason Bailey, “‘Basic Instinct’ at 30: A Time Capsule That Can Still Offend”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:
Synonyms of heel
Antonyms
Forms of heel
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | heels |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | heels |
| present participle | heeling |
| past participle | heeled |
| past | heeled |
Origin of heel
From Middle English hele, from Old English hēla, from Proto-West Germanic *hą̄hilō, from Proto-Germanic *hanhilaz, diminutive of Proto-Germanic *hanhaz (“heel, hock”), equivalent to hock + -le. More at hock. Compare North Frisian haiel, West Frisian hyl, Dutch hiel, German Low German Hiel, Danish and Norwegian hæl, Swedish häl.
Probably inferred from hielded, the past tense of hield, from Middle English helden, heelden, from Old English hyldan, hieldan (“to incline”), cognate with Old Norse hella (“to pour out”) (whence Danish hælde (“lean, pour”)).
See hele (“conceal, keep secret, cover”).
Words formed from heel
- Achilles' heel
- Achilles heel
- at someone's heels
- back-heel
- backheel
- bootheel
- bread heel
- bring someone to heel
- bring to heel
- cool one's heels
- couldn't pour water out of a boot with the instructions on the heel
- cowheel
- Cuban heel
- dig in one's heels
- down-at-heel
- down at heel
- down at the heel
- down-at-the-heel
- down at the heels
- down-at-the-heels
- down in the heel
- down in the heels
- free-heel skiing
- French heel
- headless over heels
- head over heels
- heel-and-toe
- heelball
- heel bar
- heel bone
- heelbone
- heel-dragger
- heeler
- heel-face turn
- heel flip
- heelflip
- heelful
- heel hook
- heelie
- heelies
- heelish
- heelless
- heel lift
- heel over
- heel pad syndrome
- heel-palm
- heel palm
- heelpath
- heelpiece
- heelplate
- heelpost
- heelprint
- heelproof
- heel ring
- heelside
- heel stick
- heelstrike
- heel strike
- heeltap
- heel turn
Phrases with heel
- heel up
- to heel
- heel out
- Tar Heel
- high heel
- iron heel
- shit heel
- heel bones
- heel hooks
- heel lifts
- heel palms
- heel rings
23 more phrasesFewer phrases
- Heel Stone
- heel turns
- Louis heel
- spike heel
- wedge heel
- heel sticks
- kitten heel
- pencil heel
- spring heel
- heel strikes
- stiletto heel
- stripper heel
- brings to heel
- Tar Heel State
- brought to heel
- skyscraper heel
- Tar Heel Stater
- bringing to heel
- parliamentary heel
- turn on one's heel
- turns on one's heel
- turned on one's heel
- turning on one's heel
Words that rhyme with heel
48 more rhymesFewer rhymes
- anneal
- creel
- peal
- peel
- sweal
- congeal
- Izmail
- kneel
- meal
- Neale
- streal
- weal
- awheel
- Castile
- cochineal
- feal
- heal
- Lille
- ordeal
- repeal
- sele
- squeal
- teal
- zeal
- ceil
- debile
- dishabille
- hele
- leal
- lifesteal
- Neil
- Niel
- O'Neill
- reveal
- schlemiel
- seel
- she'll
- shiel
- skeel
- spiel
- square meal
- unseal
- veal
- we'll
- weel
- ye'll
- -meal
- allele
Questions about heel
- What does heel mean?
- Heel means the rear part of the foot, where it joins the leg.
- What is heel in Hindi?
- Heel in Hindi is एड़ी (eṛī), एड़ (eṛ). See Heel meaning in Hindi.
- How do you use heel in a sentence?
- As she pushed off her left heel and pressed the sole of her foot to the cold floor she looked forward to them.
- What part of speech is heel?
- Heel can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
- How do you pronounce heel?
- Heel is pronounced /hiːl/ (UK).
- What is the plural of heel?
- The plural of heel is heels.
Words near heel in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: heel (page history and authors); Heel (page history and authors); heel (Marathi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); heel (Kannada, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); heel (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). 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.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-heel.ogg.
Cite this entry: “heel.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/heel. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.