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take to one's heels



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Idioms and Phrases

Run away, as in When the burglar alarm went off they took to their heels . This expression alludes to the fact that the heels are all one sees of a fugitive running away fast. Although similar expressions turned up from Shakespeare's time on, the exact idiom dates only from the first half of the 1800s. Also see show one's heels .
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Example Sentences

Examples have not been reviewed.

A thief had carried off my shoes, and left me a pair of old bad ones instead; I had nothing else to wear for almost a week, and both soles had fallen out, and when it became necessary to take to one's heels, the shoes turned round hindforemost, so that often I could not help laughing outright.

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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.

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