heel
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
4 characters
Language
English
word origin
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "heel", 4-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Hunspell error dictionaries, and usage frequency ranked against the top 100,000 English words in the Wordfreq corpus. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "heel" includes synonyms, antonyms, homophones, and cross-language translation pointers sourced from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org extract. Whether you are verifying the correct spelling of "heel" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
heel is aEnglishnoun. It means: The rear part of the foot, where it joins the leg. Pronounced /hiːl/. It ranks #9,052 in English word frequency. Often confused with her and hey.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | heel |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /hiːl/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #9,052 |
| Misspellings tracked | 4 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for heel is 4 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /hiːl/. Corpus data places it at rank #9,052 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 23 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 4 documented wrong-spelling variants for heel, with forms such as "ehel", "heell", and "hele". Each variant represents a distinct typo pattern that appears often enough in corpora to be worth flagging, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution.It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "her", "hey", "hes", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: 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, Du… Root origin matters for spelling because borrowed morphemes (Greek, Latin, Old French, Old English) carry their source-language orthographic conventions into modern English, which is why historical etymology is often the cleanest predictor of whether a cluster like "-ough", "-eau", or "-tion" will appear. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct English form is heel, spelled H-E-E-L, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1The rear part of the foot, where it joins the leg.
- 2The part of a shoe's sole which supports the foot's heel.
- 3The rear part of a sock or similar covering for the foot.
- 4The part of the palm of a hand closest to the wrist.
- 5A high-heeled shoe.
- 6The back, upper part of the stock.
- 7The thickening of the neck of a stringed instrument where it attaches to the body.
- 8The last or lowest part of anything.
- 9A crust end-piece of a loaf of bread.
- 10The base of a bun sliced in half lengthwise.
- 11A contemptible, unscrupulous, inconsiderate, or thoughtless person.
- 12A headlining wrestler regarded as a "bad guy," whose ring persona embodies villainous or reprehensible traits and demonstrates characteristics of a braggart and a bully.
- 13The cards set aside for later use in a patience or solitaire game.
- 14Anything resembling a human heel in shape; a protuberance; a knob.
- 15The lower end of a timber in a frame, as a post or rafter.
- 16The obtuse angle of the lower end of a rafter set sloping.
- 17A cyma reversa.
- 18The short side of an angled cut.
- 19The part of a club head's face nearest the shaft.
- 20The lower end of the bit (cutting edge) of an axehead, as opposed to the toe (upper end).
- 21The part of a carding machine's flat nearest the cylinder.
- 22The junction between the keel and the stempost of a vessel; an angular wooden join connecting the two.
- 23Material stored in a smelting furnace between batches
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.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: ehel,heell,hele,hheel
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for heel
Misspelling Variants of "heel"
Frequency rank: #9,052 in English
Frequently Asked Questions
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter H in our English index: