heelful

heelful noun: as much as will cover a heel or a heel will displace.

Noun

heelful (plural heelfuls or heelsful)

As much as will cover a heel or a heel will displace.
- It took several dozen "heelsful," winding it round the gathering ball on the leg, as one would wind a ball of string.1869, Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia
- Away the boy ran, never minding a stubbed toe or a heelful of thistles that waylaid his course, and, setting the broken fence-cap against a rail, came panting back.1973, Arthur W. Biddle, Paul A. Eschholz, The literature of Vermont: a sampler, page 185

But people who dig in their heels frequently wind up digging their own graves behind them, heelful by heelful, as, in this hypothetical example, Johnson & Johnson climbs higher and higher.1987, Andrew P. Tobias, The Only Other Investment Guide You'll Ever Need, page 223:
Barry," he chimes, and goes dancing back toward the bus, kicking up heelfuls of sand as he goes, with the flames of the fire reflected flickering on the back of his shiny, bald skull.2006, Zack Wentz, Garbageman And the Prostitute, page 110:

plural	heelfuls
plural	heelsful

From heel + -ful.

What does heelful mean?: Heelful means as much as will cover a heel or a heel will displace.
How do you use heelful in a sentence?: But people who dig in their heels frequently wind up digging their own graves behind them, heelful by heelful, as, in this hypothetical example, Johnson & Johnson climbs higher and higher.
What part of speech is heelful?: Heelful is a noun.
What is the plural of heelful?: The plural of heelful is heelfuls.

Adapted from Wiktionary: heelful (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.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

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