One syllable: heel.
heel
/hil/
heel is pronounced heel (/hil/). It has one syllable (heel), with the stress on "heel". Heel refers to the back part of the human foot below the ankle, or, in footwear, the raised rear portion that elevates the heel bone. It can also function as a verb meaning to pursue or bring to a discharge or withdrawal (as in “heel the dog”). In everyday speech, heel is a single-syllable noun with a short yet tense vowel, often shaded with a reduced schwa in rapid speech when part of phrases.
Heel refers to the back part of the human foot below the ankle, or, in footwear, the raised rear portion that elevates the heel bone. It can also function as a verb meaning to pursue or bring to a discharge or withdrawal (as in “heel the dog”). In everyday speech, heel is a single-syllable noun with a short yet tense vowel, often shaded with a reduced schwa in rapid speech when part of phrases.
"She wore heels to the gala, which gave her a statuesque posture."
"The horse trainer commanded the rider to heel, keeping the horse close."
"Her heel was sore after the long hike, so she stretched."
/hiːl/ in all three major dialects. The vowel is a long ee sound, as in “see.” The initial and final sounds are a voiced glottal stop absent in careful speech, but usually the word is a clean close-front unrounded vowel with a release into an explicit l. Stress is on the single syllable. Muscle positioning: high, front tongue position for /iː/, with the tongue body high and forward; the lips are spread or neutral. Reference: IPA /hiːl/.
Common errors include pronouncing the vowel as a short /ɪ/ as in “hill” and dipping the /l/ into a dark or velarized form; both distort the long /iː/ vowel. Another mistake is pronouncing /h/ too softly or dropping it, which can blur the initial breathy onset of /h/. To correct: practice sustaining /iː/ with a tense jaw and closed mouth, ensure the /l/ is light and clear at the alveolar ridge, and keep the lips relaxed but not rounded. Also avoid adding an extra syllable.
In US, UK, and AU, /hiːl/ is rhotic across most varieties; the word remains a pure long vowel /iː/. In some fast Australian speech, a subtle vowel shortening can occur in connected speech, especially with quick contexts, but the difference is often light and not always noticeable. The main variation is in flanking consonants and intonation; US tends to maintain a crisp /h/ onset and longer vowel duration in careful speech, while some UK and AU speakers may exhibit more tongue tension or slightly looser jaw posture affecting the vowel quality.
Because the /iː/ vowel requires sustained high front tongue position with slight tension, and the /l/ can blend into a dark, post-alveolar shade if the tongue tip doesn’t lift to the alveolar ridge. The breathy onset /h/ must be audible but not aspirated, which can be tricky in rapid speech. Coordinating the vowel, consonant, and l efficiently without slurring into nearby sounds (like ‘heal’ or ‘hill’) demands precise tongue height, lip position, and jaw stability.
Heel is a cavum-limb word with one syllable; the primary challenge is maintaining a pure long /iː/ without reducing to /i/ or over-laxing to /ɪ/. The mouth position is high, front, and relatively tense, with the tongue not clenched but firm. A common issue is a subtle Y-like glide toward /j/ in some non-native speech; avoid that by focusing on a clean, breathy-free onset and a crisp /l/ at the end.
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Heel comes from Old English hel(l) or helu, related to Germanic roots such as Old High German helha and Dutch hiel, all tied to the idea of the rear part or projection. The term is attested in Old English texts to describe the calcaneal region and, by metaphorical extension, the back side of something. In footwear, the word appears in Middle English as a component describing the elevated back part of a shoe. Over centuries, the sense expanded to include terms like “heel” in horse training (to drive the horse with the heel) and idioms involving pursuit or edge, such as “get the heel on” or “heel of the bread.” The evolution reflects both anatomical terminology and common language usage in daily life, with first known uses appearing in medical and nautical contexts before becoming ubiquitous in fashion and sports vocabulary. The single-syllable lexical footprint has favored compact pronunciation in rapid speech across dialects, although vowel quality and rhoticity shift subtly by region. The core sense remains anchored to the posterior part of the foot or the posterior aspect of an object, with figurative uses following from the original anatomical meaning.
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💡 These words have similar meanings to "heel" and can often be used interchangeably.
🔄 These words have opposite meanings to "heel" and show contrast in usage.
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Words that rhyme with "heel"
-eel sounds
-eal sounds
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