Heal or heel?
heal is a verb meaning “To make better from a disease, wound, etc.; to revive or cure”; heel is a noun meaning “The rear part of the foot, where it joins the leg”. Use heal as a verb and heel as a noun (heel is also a verb: “To follow at somebody's heels; to chase closely”). They sound the same (/ˈhiːl/). In written English (wordfreq, 2021 data) heal is about 1.9 times as common as heel.
What is the difference between heal and heel?
| heal | heel | |
|---|---|---|
| Part of speech | verb, noun | noun, verb |
| Meaning | To make better from a disease, wound, etc.; to revive or cure To become better or healthy again A spell or ability that restores hit points or removes a status ailment | The rear part of the foot, where it joins the leg The part of a shoe's sole which supports the foot's heel To follow at somebody's heels; to chase closely |
| Example | This bandage will help to heal your cut | He drove the heel of his hand into the man's nose |
| Forms | heals, healing, healed | heels |
| Pronunciation | /ˈhiːl/ [ˈhɪi̯l] | /hiːl/ /hil/ |
| In writing | 13 times per million words | 6.9 times per million words |
Sources: heal and heel in the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Every current meaning of heal and heel
heal
- 1
To make better from a disease, wound, etc.; to revive or cure
This bandage will help to heal your cut
- 2
A spell or ability that restores hit points or removes a status ailment
- 3
To become better or healthy again
Bandages allow cuts to heal
- 4
Healing; an instance of restoration of health or hit points
Give me heals! I need healing!
- 5
To reconcile, as a breach or difference; to make whole; to free from guilt
to heal dissensions
heel
- 1
The rear part of the foot, where it joins the leg
- 2
To follow at somebody's heels; to chase closely
She called to her dog to heel
- 3
To incline to one side; to tilt
- 4
The act of inclining or canting from a vertical position; a cant
[T]he boat, from a sudden gust of wind, taking a deep heel, I tumbled overboard and down I went […]
- 5
The part of a shoe's sole which supports the foot's heel
- 6
To cause to follow at somebody’s heels (transitive)
- 7
The rear part of a sock or similar covering for the foot
- 8
To add a heel to, or increase the size of the heel of (a shoe or boot)
Source: the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); obsolete, archaic, dialect and rare senses left out.
Which is more common, heal or heel?
heal appears 13 times per million words; heel 6.9 times per million words.
heal 13 times per million wordsheel 6.9 times per million words
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How many people search heal vs heel?
“heal vs heel” is searched about 1,900 times a month on Google and 70 on Bing in the United States. Google counts close variants of a query together (“heel vs heal”, “heal or heel”).
Sources: Google Ads keyword data through DataForSEO and Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, the average month from September 2025 to August 2026.