turn on one's heel
"turn-on-one-s-heel" is a 14-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“turn on one's heel” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a verb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 18
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - To suddenly turn away from someone or something in order to depart rapidly, especially as expressive of haughtiness, disapproval, or evasiveness.
Corpus desk
Index EN-turn-on-one-s-heel · turn on one's heel · English
turn on one's heel · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 18 letters
- VOW-6 6 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 | turn on one's heel |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| Letters | 18 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “turn on one's heel” in English
Rare enough to double-check
turn on one's heel is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as averb. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "To suddenly turn away from someone or something in order to depart rapidly, especially as expressive of haughtiness, disapproval, or evasiveness.".
turn on one's heel has no tracked misspelling variants, since its letter sequence doesn't invite the usual edit-distance slips. Our dataset records no confusable match here, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.
No documented word history exists for this headword, so its spelling is best explained by sound-to-letter mapping rather than etymology. The correct English form is turn on one's heel, spelled T-U-R-N- -O-N- -O-N-E-'-S- -H-E-E-L.
Definition
- 1To suddenly turn away from someone or something in order to depart rapidly, especially as expressive of haughtiness, disapproval, or evasiveness.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how turn on one's heel appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
There he stood, answering shortly and gruffly to all questions proposed to him, . . . and as soon as the ancient priestess had handed him his glass of the salutiferous water, turned on his heel with a brief good-morning.
"Well, Maude, he was on the platform this morning, and when he saw me, he turned on his heel and hurried out of the station."
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.