heel n.
1. (US Und.) constr. with the, ‘The racket of stealing by sneaking’ (Sutherland, The Professional Thief, 1937).
![]() | implied in on the heel | |
![]() | (con. 1905–25) Professional Thief (1956) 18: When the heel is being worked two-handed, the one who is watching will keep up a constant line of talk or blah in order to make the operation seem natural. |
2. (orig. US) a petty criminal.
![]() | Wash. Times (DC) 14 Sept. 10/4: Heel— A sneak thief. | |
![]() | Vocab. Criminal Sl. 43: heel [...] an inefficient or pusillanimous pretender to sterling criminal qualifications. | |
![]() | Gangster Girl 18: I’ve got as many heelers as I’ve got heels on my payroll. | |
![]() | (con. 1905–25) Professional Thief (1956) 6: Two heels (sneak thieves) had got into the stockroom of a high-class jewelry house. | |
![]() | Sister of the Road (1975) 103: Big Otto [had] served a two-year stretch. Later I found it was for being a sneak thief, a ‘heel’ as they called it. | |
![]() | Criminal Sl. (rev. edn). | |
![]() | Fireworks (1988) 127: They just don’t make ’em any sneakier than my Mitch [...] I’ll bet you’re the biggest heel in the world! | ‘The Frightening Frammis’ in|
![]() | Lowspeak 72: Heel – sneak thief. | |
![]() | Love Is a Racket 33: Wesker. Just another con, just another heel grifter. |
3. (orig. US) a general derog., esp. a dishonest, untrustworthy person, esp. one who treats women badly.
![]() | Vocab. Criminal Sl. 43: heel [...] An incompetent; an undesirable. | |
![]() | Pleasure Man (1997) Act I: Say, you heel, do you want me to get fined a hundred smackers for lettin’ a wise-guy pull in here wit’out a card? | |
![]() | What’s In It For Me? 98: Three of the seven heels that infested our so-called office were in one corner. | |
![]() | Bound for Glory (1969) 19: You big slobbery loafin’ heel. | |
![]() | Rhymes of a Roughneck 16: Old Man Death’s a lousy heel who will not play the game. | ‘Death’s Way’ in|
![]() | Crime Smashers Oct. 25: [comic] See what I mean, you heel? Hey! Drop that gun!! | |
![]() | Jeeves in the Offing 155: Her first husband [...] was a heel to end all heels. | |
![]() | in Hellhole 68: He knew he was a heel and all that, but even he wasn’t bad enough to go to bed with a little girl. | |
![]() | Rosa Marie’s Baby (2013) [ebook] He felt like a heel taking the poor girl’s money. | |
![]() | Split Decision [ebook] Man, I was a heel for not thinking about him first. | |
![]() | Observer (London) Rev. 23 Oct. 5/4: It makes me feel a bit of a heel for fathering a child. | |
![]() | Scrublands [ebook] [F]eeling like a heel for thinking of himself’. |
4. (US Und.) an informer.
![]() | New York Day by Day 23 Dec. [synd. col.] The term ‘heel,’ now used, was a crook who squealed. | |
![]() | Sat. Eve. Post 13 Apr.; list extracted in AS VI:2 (1930) 133: heel, n. One who squeals. | ‘Chatter of Guns’ in|
![]() | Criminal Sl. (rev. edn). | |
![]() | (con. 1964–8) Cold Six Thousand 91: Wicked Wendell [...] a rape-o/a shitbird/a heel. |
In phrases
to be hanged.
![]() | Dobson’s Dry Bobs n.p.: If his uncle had not stood his very good friend, he had bid his kinefolkes al adew with his heeles, and daunced his last measures upon the gallowes. |
see under drag v.1
(US) to be rejected, ignored.
![]() | Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 18 Nov. 2/1: Philadelphia [...] parades a docket of forty-seven divorce cases [...] Whew But isn’t sedate old Hymen getting the back heel all around? |
1. working as a criminal.
![]() | Enemy to Society 235: I wasn’t above usin’ it I kin tell you when I was out on the ‘heel’. | |
![]() | Criminal Sl. (rev. edn). |
2. till-tapping.
![]() | Amer. Law Rev. LII (1918) 890: Thieves who tap store tills [...] when working are said to be ‘out on the Heel’. | ‘Criminal Sl.’ in
(US) to act unpleasantly, to be mean or cruel.
![]() | 🌐 His opponent, after all, was one of the most disliked individuals in the solar system. But somebody had to play the heel. | ‘Extreme Mars’ 21 Apr. at Space.com
to die.
![]() | Ar’t Asleepe, Husband? 164: For if this reverend Trunke-hose turne up his heeles, whosoever stumble on his Grave, his Foreman Vsher is in faire possibility, to enjoy his grath. |