take to one's heels
"take-to-one-s-heels" is a 15-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“take to one's heels” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a verb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 19
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - To leave, especially to flee or run away.
Corpus desk
Index EN-take-to-one-s-heels · take to one's heels · English
take to one's heels · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 19 letters
- VOW-7 7 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "T" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | take to one's heels |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| Letters | 19 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “take to one's heels” in English
Rare enough to double-check
take to one's heels is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as averb. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "To leave, especially to flee or run away.".
Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for take to one's heels, typically a sign the spelling maps closely to how the word sounds. No confusable counterpart is on file for this word, since its spelling is unusual enough that it doesn't cluster with a lookalike.
No borrowing history is documented for this entry, so its spelling is easiest to reason about phoneme by phoneme, absent a documented history. The correct English form is take to one's heels, spelled T-A-K-E- -T-O- -O-N-E-'-S- -H-E-E-L-S.
Definition
- 1To leave, especially to flee or run away.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how take to one's heels appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
[T]hen, confused and frightened, he took to his heels; and, not knowing what he did, made off as fast as he could lay his feet to the ground.
Of a sudden, however, a man broke from their company, took to his heels, and fled into the church.
Synonyms
This word in other languages
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.