Heel, Heels

(Anglo-Saxon hel.)

Achilles' heel.

(See under Achilles.) I showed him a fair pair of heels. I ran away and outran them.

“Two of them saw me when I went out of doors, and chased me, but I showed them a fair pair of heels.” —Sir W. Scott: Peveril of the Peak, chap. xxiv.

Out at heels.

In a sad plight, in decayed circumstances, like a beggar whose stockings are worn out at the heels.

“A good man's fortune may grow out at heels.”

Shakespeare: King Lear, ii. 2.

To show a light pair of heels.

To abscond. To take to one's heels. To run off. “In pedes nos conjicere.”

Source: Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, E. Cobham Brewer, 1894

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