Language & Grammar discussion

I’ve read the expression a lot (particularly in fiction) and it refers to someone running away. Yet, when one runs, the heels are generally the part of the foot that doesn’t touch the ground.

Came across this again today and thought someone in this group might be able to shed some light on this.

Not a clue.

Nor I. Nor google.

It does not refer to your own heels but that you are close to the steps of the runner in front of you. (that is what I have always understood but don't know for sure.)

I had a great word origins book, but it seems to have been lost during our move last summer. You guessed it. The damn book took to its heels.

Ken wrote: "...You guessed it. The damn book took to its heels."

;-) LOL

There is another phase I have heard like; "show your heels" which means to run at a speed so that your heels can be seen as you go or to leave in a hurry.

"Show some heel" may be a request for a dance esp. polka. Now I am curious too. Anybody?

There is an English slang saying 'to leg it' meaning run away . As in "I legged it out of there pretty sharpish I can tell you"

And another , Cockney /London I think , to ' have it away on your toes' meaning the same thing . "I tried to collar 'im guv, but he 'ad it away on 'is toes"

Hmn. Could be, Barbara. Expressions involving the limbs!

Lower limb slang is often funny I think. Cockney 'plates of meat' for feet for eg.

I used to have a Cockney to American Dictionary but it's "gone walkies." ;-)

Don't recall where I got it but, I'm guessing it fell outta some lorry on the dual carriageway.

Curtesy of Idomfreedictionary.com

take to one's heels, to
To flee. Clearly this term does not refer to running on one’s heels, which would not make for a particularly rapid escape. Rather, the heels are all one sees of a person who turns tail (see also turn tail). Thus Shakespeare wrote: “Darest thou . . . play the coward . . . and show it a fair pair of heels and run from it?” (Henry IV, Part 1, 2.4). John Ray recorded “show them a fair pair of heels” in his 1678 proverb collection, but in the nineteenth century it became a clean pair of heels (with Sir Walter Scott and Robert Louis Stevenson, among others). The current cliché dates from the nineteenth century as well. Henry Thomas Riley (1816–78) used it in his translation of Terence’s play Eunuchus: “I took to my heels as fast as I could.”
See also: take

Carol wrote: "Curtesy of Idomfreedictionary.com

take to one's heels, to To flee. ..."

Thanks Carol!

It still isn’t a definitive answer.

Sounds good to me. Now I'm going to hoof it.