Word.ws English Dictionary

hot on someone's heels

hot on someone's heels adjective: close behind; pursuing or following closely.

Adjective

hot on someone's heels (not comparable)

  1. (idiomatic) Close behind; pursuing or following closely.
    • She left the restaurant with him hot on her heels.
    • Newcastle beat Bolton to increase the pressure on the Londoners, while Chelsea are also hot on the heels of faltering Tottenham, who have one win from their last eight games.2012 April 9, Mandeep Sanghera, “Tottenham 1 - 2 Norwich”, in BBC Sport

Questions about hot on someone's heels

What does hot on someone's heels mean?
Hot on someone's heels means close behind; pursuing or following closely.
What part of speech is hot on someone's heels?
Hot on someone's heels is an adjective.

Words near hot on someone's heels in the dictionary

  1. hot Neptunes
  2. hot nickel
  3. hot off the press
  4. hot off the presses
  5. hot on
  6. hot on someone's heels
  7. hot on the trail
  8. hot panted
  9. hot pants
  10. hot particle
  11. hot particles

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: hot on someone's heels (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-hot on someone's heels.ogg.

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