Word.ws English Dictionary

take to one's heels

take to one's heels verb: to leave, especially to flee or run away.

Verb

take to one's heels (third-person singular simple present takes to one's heels, present participle taking to one's heels, simple past took to one's heels, past participle taken to one's heels)

  1. (idiomatic) To leave, especially to flee or run away.
    • [T]hen, confused and frightened, he took to his heels; and, not knowing what he did, made off as fast as he could lay his feet to the ground.1839, Charles Dickens, chapter 10, in Oliver Twist
    • Of a sudden, however, a man broke from their company, took to his heels, and fled into the church.1908, Robert Louis Stevenson, chapter 26, in In the South Seas
    Synonyms:
    make tracks

take to one's heels meaning in Hindi and Tamil

take to one's heels in Hindi

to flee or run away
नौ दो ग्यारह होना nau do gyārah honā

take to one's heels in Tamil

to flee or run away
ஓட்டம்பிடி ōṭṭampiṭi

Synonyms of take to one's heels

Forms of take to one's heels

third-person singular presenttakes to one's heels
present participletaking to one's heels
pasttook to one's heels
past participletaken to one's heels

Questions about take to one's heels

What does take to one's heels mean?
Take to one's heels means to leave, especially to flee or run away.
What is take to one's heels in Hindi?
Take to one's heels in Hindi is नौ दो ग्यारह होना (nau do gyārah honā). See Take to one's heels meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is take to one's heels?
Take to one's heels is a verb.
What is the past tense of take to one's heels?
The past tense of take to one's heels is took to one's heels.

Words near take to one's heels in the dictionary

  1. take to court
  2. take to drink
  3. take to heart
  4. take to one's bed
  5. take to one's bosom
  6. take to one's heels
  7. take to one's scrapers
  8. take to pound town
  9. take to task
  10. take to the bank
  11. take to the bricks

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: take to one'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-take to one's heels.ogg.

Cite this entry: “take to one's heels.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/take_to_one%27s_heels. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.