Word.ws English Dictionary

Tar Heel

Tar Heel noun: synonym of North Carolinian.

Noun

Tar Heel (plural Tar Heels)

  1. (US, slang) Synonym of North Carolinian.
    • I'm a Tar Heel born
      I'm a Tar Heel bred
      And when I die
      I'm a Tar Heel dead.
  2. (US, slang) A person associated with or supportive of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
    • Michael Jordan is one of many Tar Heel basketball standouts.

Proper noun

Tar Heel

  1. A small town in Bladen County, North Carolina.
  2. An unincorporated community in Hickman County, Kentucky.

Synonyms of Tar Heel

Forms of Tar Heel

pluralTar Heels
alternative formTar heel
alternative formTarheel
alternative formtarheel

Origin of Tar Heel

North Carolina was associated with tar (of which it was a major producer) from the 1700s onwards, and residents were (at first derisively) called "Tarboilers" since at least the 1840s; "Tar Heel" is first attested in 1863 in comments by Confederate soldiers which suggest it was already in common use at that time. One popular theory suggests it refers to North Carolinians having tar on their heels to make them "stick", referring either to their reluctance to join the Confederacy, or to their holding ground during battles when other states' troops retreated.

Words formed from Tar Heel

Questions about Tar Heel

What does Tar Heel mean?
Tar Heel means synonym of North Carolinian.
What part of speech is Tar Heel?
Tar Heel can be a noun or a proper noun.
What is the plural of Tar Heel?
The plural of Tar Heel is Tar Heels.

Words near Tar Heel in the dictionary

  1. tar babies
  2. tar baby
  3. tar boil
  4. tar boils
  5. tar derby
  6. Tar Heel
  7. Tar Heel State
  8. Tar Heel Stater
  9. Tar Heels
  10. tar out
  11. tar paper

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Tar 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: “Tar Heel.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/tar_heel. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.