heel

English Wikipedia has an article on:

heel

Wikipedia

English Wikipedia has an article on:

Heel (part of the foot)

Wikipedia

• IPA^(key): /hiːl/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -iːl
• Homophones: heal (general), he'll, hill (some accents)

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.

heel (plural heels)

1. (anatomy) The rear part of the foot, where it joins the leg.
   • 1709, John Denham, Coopers-Hill:

     He [the stag] calls to mind his strength and then his speed, / His winged heels and then his armed head.

2. The part of a shoe's sole which supports the foot's heel.
3. The rear part of a sock or similar covering for the foot.
4. The part of the palm of a hand closest to the wrist.

   He drove the heel of his hand into the man's nose.

5. (usually in the plural) A woman's high-heeled shoe.
   • 2008, Kwame Shauku, Wonderful Williams and the Magnificent Seven, page 257:

     She'd been wearing heels, and fell backward off her right heel and twisted or broke her ankle.

   • 2011, Candace Irvine, A Dangerous Engagement:

     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.

   • 2015, Alex Blackmore, Killing Eva:

     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.

6. (firearms) The back, upper part of the stock.
7. (music) The thickening of the neck of a stringed instrument where it attaches to the body.
8. The last or lowest part of anything.

   the heel of a mast

   the heel of a vessel

   • 1860, Anthony Trollope, Framley Parsonage:

     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

9. (US, Ireland, Scotland, Australia) A crust end-piece of a loaf of bread.
   • 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:

     the heel of the white loaf

   • 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:

     Boiled mutton was in one, and the heel of a damper in another.

   • 1930, Norman Lindsay, Redheap, Sydney, N.S.W.: Ure Smith, published 1965, →OCLC, page 42:

     `Have ye seen,' said Uncle Jobson with basilisk severity, `what's become of the heel of to-day's loaf?'

10. (US) The base of a bun sliced in half lengthwise.

    Synonyms: boot, butt

    • 1996, Ester Reiter, Making Fast Food: From the Frying Pan Into the Fryer, page 100:

      The bottom half, or the bun heel is placed in the carton, and the pickle slices spread evenly over the meat or cheese.

11. (informal, synecdochically) A contemptible, unscrupulous, inconsiderate or thoughtless person.
    • 1953, Raymond Chandler, chapter 29, in The Long Goodbye:

      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.

    • 2011, Philip Reeve, Scrivener's Moon, Scholastic, →ISBN, pages 361–362:

      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?

    • 2022 March 20, Jason Bailey, “‘Basic Instinct’ at 30: A Time Capsule That Can Still Offend”, in The New York Times‎^[1], →ISSN:

      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.

12. (by extension, slang, professional wrestling) 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.
    • 1992, Bruce Lincoln, Discourse and the Construction of Society, page 158:

      Freedman began his analysis by noting two important facts about professional wrestling: First, that heels triumph considerably more often than do babyfaces […]

13. (card games) The cards set aside for later use in a patience or solitaire game.
14. Anything resembling a human heel in shape; a protuberance; a knob.
15. (architecture) The lower end of a timber in a frame, as a post or rafter.
16. (specifically, US) The obtuse angle of the lower end of a rafter set sloping.
17. (architecture, obsolete) A cyma reversa.
    • 1722, Claude Perrault, A Treatise of the Five Orders in Architecture, page vii:

      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.

    • 1846, George William Francis, The Dictionary of the Arts, Sciences, and Manufactures:

      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.

    • 1891, Vignola, Practical Elementary Treatise on Architecture, page ii:

      Talon: Heel moulding or ogee

18. (carpentry) The short side of an angled cut.
19. (golf) The part of a club head's face nearest the shaft.
20. The lower end of the bit (cutting edge) of an axehead; as opposed to the toe (upper end).
21. In a carding machine, the part of a flat nearest the cylinder.
22. (nautical) The junction between the keel and the stempost of a vessel; an angular wooden join connecting the two.

• (end of bread): boot, butt, ender, outsider (Scotland)

• (antonym(s) of “headlining wrestler”): babyface
• (antonym(s) of “angled cut in carpentry”): toe

heel (third-person singular simple present heels, present participle heeling, simple past and past participle heeled)

2. To follow at somebody's heels; to chase closely.

   She called to her dog to heel.

3. To add a heel to, or increase the size of the heel of (a shoe or boot).
4. To kick with the heel.

   she heeled her horse forward

5. (transitive) To perform by the use of the heels, as in dancing, running, etc.
   • c. 1602, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Troylus and Cressida”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene iv], lines 85-86:

     I cannot sing,
     Nor heel the high lavolt.

6. (transitive) To arm with a gaff, as a cock for fighting.
7. (golf, transitive) To hit (the ball) with the heel of the club.
8. (American football, transitive) To make (a fair catch) standing with one foot forward, the heel on the ground and the toe up.
9. (US, intransitive) At Yale University, to work as a heeler or student journalist.

Probably inferred from hielded, the past tense of hield, from Middle English helden, heelden, from Old English hyldan, hieldan (“to incline”), cognate with Old Norse hella (“to pour out”) (whence Danish hælde (“lean, pour”)).

heel (third-person singular simple present heels, present participle heeling, simple past and past participle heeled)

1. (chiefly nautical) To incline to one side; to tilt. [from 16th c.]
   • 1764, John Nourse, Navigation Or, the Art of Sailing Upon the Sea, page 65:

     The faster a ship sails, the better she will answer her helm; if she sail very slow, she will scarce steer at all. If she heel much, she won't answer the helm so well.

• angle of vanishing stability
• limit of positive stability

heel (plural heels)

1. (nautical) The act of inclining or canting from a vertical position; a cant. [from 17th c.]
   • 1808–10, William Hickey, Memoirs of a Georgian Rake, Folio Society 1995, p. 14:

     [T]he boat, from a sudden gust of wind, taking a deep heel, I tumbled overboard and down I went […] .

• heeling

See hele (“conceal, keep secret, cover”).

heel (third-person singular simple present heels, present participle heeling, simple past and past participle heeled)

1. (rare, now especially in the phrase "heel in") Alternative form of hele (“cover; conceal”).
   • 1911, Biennial Report of the State Geologist, North Carolina Geological Survey Section, page 92:

     They should be dug up with a sharp mattock or grub hoe, the roots being broken as little as possible, and they should be heeled in a cool place and protected from the sun until ready to plant. When lifted for planting from the trench in which heeled the roots should be kept covered with a wet sack.

   • 1913, Indian School Journal, page 142:

     In the late fall the seedlings may be dug and heeled in very closely until all the leaves have dropped.

   • 1916, Transactions of the Indiana Horticultural Society, page 111:

     Member: Did you water the trees when you set them out?
     Walter Vonnegut: No; I heeled the trees in as soon as they were received.

   • 1937, Robert Wilson, Ernest John George, Planting and care of shelterbelts on the northern Great Plains, page 15:

     If trees are received from the nursery in the fall, they should be carefully heeled in until the planting season opens in the spring.

   • 1976, Keith W. Dorman, The Genetics and Breeding of Southern Pines, page 66:

     Place seedlings in the trench. Small-stemmed seedlings may be heeled-in in bunches of 25, but large seedlings should be heeled-in loose.

   • (Can we date this quote?), Brian Kerr, Lodge St Lawrence 144 Ritual, page 34:

     [I] of my own free will and accord, do hereby, here at and hereon, solemnly swear that I will always heel, conceal and never improperly reveal any of the secrets or mysteries of, or belonging to [the Masons].

• “heel”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
• “heel”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.
• “heel n.”, in Green’s Dictionary of Slang, Jonathon Green, 2016–present

• Ehle, Hele, hele

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

• IPA^(key): /ˈheːl/ [ˈheːl]
• Hyphenation: heel

héel m 

1. cardamom

• E. M. Parker, R. J. Hayward (1985) “heel”, in An Afar-English-French dictionary (with Grammatical Notes in English), University of London, →ISBN
• Mohamed Hassan Kamil (2015) L’afar: description grammaticale d’une langue couchitique (Djibouti, Erythrée et Ethiopie)‎^[2], Paris: Université Sorbonne Paris Cité (doctoral thesis), page 84

• IPA^(key): /ɦeːl/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Hyphenation: heel
• Rhymes: -eːl
• Homophone: Heel

From Middle Dutch hêel, from Old Dutch hēl, from Proto-West Germanic *hail, from Proto-Germanic *hailaz.

heel (comparative heler, superlative heelst)

1. complete, full, whole

   Synonyms: gans, volledig

   Ga je die hele taart alleen opeten?

   Are you going to eat that entire cake by yourself?

2. intact, unbroken, undamaged, untarnished

   Ik heb het bord laten vallen, maar hij is nog heel.

   I dropped the plate, but it's still intact.

3. big, enormous, significant

When the noun is accompanied by a definite article, a possessive pronoun, a demonstrative pronoun, or a genitive construction, heel in the sense of "whole" may precede the whole phrase, in uninflected form. For example, the following are both correct:

de hele dag / heel de dag ― the entire day

• Berbice Creole Dutch: hele
• Negerhollands: heel, hele, helle
• Skepi Creole Dutch: helwel, he
• → Saramaccan: híi
• → Sranan Tongo: eri, heri, hele, heele, herheri

heel

1. very

Although it is an adverb, heel may be inflected to hele so as to match a following adjective. For example, both of these sentences are correct:

• Dat is een heel grote boom.
• Dat is een hele grote boom.

  That is a very large tree.

The second sentence with hele may, however, be regarded as informal and less appropriate for formal writing.

Only heel is obviously possible when the adjective is not inflected to begin with:

• Dat is een heel groot huis.

  That is a very large house.

• Jersey Dutch: hêl, hê

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

heel

1. inflection of helen:
   1. first-person singular present indicative
   2. (in case of inversion) second-person singular present indicative
   3. imperative

• hele

heel

1. second-person singular imperative of heelen

From Old Dutch hēl, from Proto-Germanic *hailaz.

hêel

1. whole, full
2. undamaged, unbroken
3. healthy, healed
4. honest, sincere, pure

• Dutch: heel
  • Afrikaans: heel

• “heel (II)”, in Vroegmiddelnederlands Woordenboek, 2000
• Verwijs, E., Verdam, J. (1885–1929) “heel (II)”, in Middelnederlandsch Woordenboek, The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, →ISBN, page II

heel

1. Alternative form of hele (“health”)

From Middle English hele, from Old English hēla, from Proto-West Germanic *hą̄hilō.

• IPA^(key): /hiːɫ/
• Homophones: haail, hele, heale, hyle

heel

1. heel
   • 1927, “YOLA ZONG O BARONY VORTH”, in THE ANCIENT DIALECT OF THE BARONIES OF FORTH AND BARGY, COUNTY WEXFORD, page 132, line 7:

     Wi spur upa heel hay gaed him a goad,

     With a spur on his heel, he gave him a goad,

• Kathleen A. Browne (1927) The Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland Sixth Series, Vol.17 No.2, Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, page 132