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 outside the top-ranked English vocabulary, used as a verb - the kind of word writers most often double-check.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 19
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - To leave, especially to flee or run away.
| 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) |
Where “take to one's heels” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for take to one's heels is 19 letters long, classified as a verb. It sits outside the most-frequent rank tiers, which is often why uncommon words generate more spelling variants per reader. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "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.
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.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “take to one's heels”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is T-A-K-E- -T-O- -O-N-E-'-S- -H-E-E-L-S - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.