heel
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /hiːl/
ipa: /hil/
homophone: heal (general)
homophone: he'll (some accents)
rhymes: -iːl
Forms: form: heels
Etymology: 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.
Senses: examples: text: He [the stag] calls to mind his strength and then his speed, / His winged heels and then his armed head.
ref: 1709, John Denham, Coopers-Hill:
topics: anatomy
medicine
sciences
glosses: The rear part of the foot, where it joins the leg.
glosses: The part of a shoe's sole which supports the foot's heel.
glosses: The rear part of a sock or similar covering for the foot.
examples: text: He drove the heel of his hand into the man's nose.
glosses: The part of the palm of a hand closest to the wrist.
examples: text: She'd been wearing heels, and fell backward off her right heel and twisted or broke her ankle.
ref: 2008, Kwame Shauku, Wonderful Williams and the Magnificent Seven, page 257:
text: 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.
ref: 2011, Candace Irvine, A Dangerous Engagement:
text: Flat shoes. As she pushed off her left heel and pressed the sole of her foot to the cold floor she looked forward to them.
ref: 2015, Alex Blackmore, Killing Eva:
text: Oh mama, I'm just having fun
On the stage in my heels
It's where I belong down at the...
ref: 2020 April 3, Chappell Roan, Dan Nigro, “Pink Pony Club”performed by Chappell Roan:
glosses: A high-heeled shoe.
topics: engineering
firearms
government
military
natural-sciences
physical-sciences
politics
tools
war
weaponry
glosses: The back, upper part of the stock.
topics: entertainment
lifestyle
music
glosses: The thickening of the neck of a stringed instrument where it attaches to the body.
examples: text: the heel of a mast
text: the heel of a vessel
text: 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 heel
ref: 1860, Anthony Trollope, Framley Parsonage:
glosses: The last or lowest part of anything.
examples: text: the heel of the white loaf
ref: 1814 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: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, →OCLC:
text: Boiled mutton was in one, and the heel of a damper in another.
ref: 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:
text: `Have ye seen,' said Uncle Jobson with basilisk severity, `what's become of the heel of to-day's loaf?'
ref: 1930, Norman Lindsay, Redheap, Sydney, N.S.W.: Ure Smith, →OCLC, page 42:
glosses: A crust end-piece of a loaf of bread.
examples: text: The bottom half, or the bun heel is placed in the carton, and the pickle slices spread evenly over the meat or cheese.
ref: 1996, Ester Reiter, Making Fast Food: From the Frying Pan Into the Fryer, page 100:
synonyms: boot
butt
glosses: The base of a bun sliced in half lengthwise.
examples: text: 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.
ref: 1953, Raymond Chandler, chapter 29, in The Long Goodbye:
text: 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?
ref: 2011, Philip Reeve, Scrivener's Moon, Scholastic, →ISBN, pages 361–362:
text: 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.
ref: 2022 March 20, Jason Bailey, “‘Basic Instinct’ at 30: A Time Capsule That Can Still Offend”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:
glosses: A contemptible, unscrupulous, inconsiderate, or thoughtless person.
examples: text: Freedman began his analysis by noting two important facts about professional wrestling: First, that heels triumph considerably more often than do babyfaces[…]
ref: 1992, Bruce Lincoln, Discourse and the Construction of Society, page 158:
topics: government
hobbies
lifestyle
martial-arts
military
politics
professional-wrestling
sports
war
wrestling
glosses: 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.
topics: card-games
games
glosses: The cards set aside for later use in a patience or solitaire game.
glosses: Anything resembling a human heel in shape; a protuberance; a knob.
topics: architecture
glosses: The lower end of a timber in a frame, as a post or rafter.
glosses: The obtuse angle of the lower end of a rafter set sloping.
examples: text: 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.
ref: 1722, Claude Perrault, A Treatise of the Five Orders in Architecture, page vii:
text: 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.
ref: 1846, George William Francis, The Dictionary of the Arts, Sciences, and Manufactures:
text: Talon: Heel moulding or ogee
ref: 1891, Vignola, Practical Elementary Treatise on Architecture, page ii:
topics: architecture
glosses: A cyma reversa.
topics: business
carpentry
construction
manufacturing
glosses: The short side of an angled cut.
topics: golf
hobbies
lifestyle
sports
glosses: The part of a club head's face nearest the shaft.
glosses: The lower end of the bit (cutting edge) of an axehead, as opposed to the toe (upper end).
glosses: The part of a carding machine's flat nearest the cylinder.
topics: nautical
transport
glosses: The junction between the keel and the stempost of a vessel; an angular wooden join connecting the two.
Synonyms: sense: end of bread
word: boot
sense: end of bread
word: butt
sense: end of bread
word: crust
sense: end of bread
word: ender
sense: end of bread
word: knob-end
sense: end of bread
word: outsider
Derived terms: Achilles' heel
Achilles heel
at someone's heels
back-heel
backheel
bootheel
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
heelbone
heel bone
heel-dragger
heeler
heel-face turn
heelflip
heel flip
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
heel strike
heelstrike
heeltap
heel turn
heelwork
high heel
high-heel
high heels
his heels
hot on somebody's heels
hot on someone's heels
iron heel
kick one's heels
kick up one's heels
kitten heel
larkheel
lark's-heel
lay by the heels
Louis heel
midheel
neck and heels
out at heels
out at the heels
Parliamentary heel
parliamentary heel
pencil heel
reheel
roundheels
rubber heels
shit heel
shitheel
shit-heel
show a clean pair of heels
sit back on one's heels
skyscraper heel
snap at someone's heels
spike heel
stiletto heel
stripper heel
take to one's heels
Tar Heel
toe-and-heel
to heel
turn on one's heel
upon the heels of
wedge heel
well-heeled
wire-heel