to heel

1. Close behind someone, as in The dog started chasing the car but Miriam called him to heel . This expression is used almost solely in reference to dogs. The heel in this idiom, first recorded in 1810, is the person's.

2. Under control or discipline, as in By a series of surprise raids the police brought the gang members to heel . This expression alludes to controlling a dog by training it to follow at one's heels. [Late 1800s]

Example Sentences

There are no human characters in “Badlands,” only expendable mechanical representatives of a megacorporation bent on bringing the known universe to heel.

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Father Theodore Hesburgh, the president of Notre Dame, was more interested in building an academic institution than a football powerhouse, and was determined to bring the coach to heel.

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The chorus’s wild vacillations—celebrating Amina, then punishing her and then trying to clear her name—fit with their efforts to bring her to heel.

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I think in part during the peak of left-wing cancel culture, there was clearly a way in which progressives were interested more in canceling and bringing to heel people who were centrist liberals than they were people who were further to the right.

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Newsrooms, tech companies and TV networks cower before a president bringing his critics to heel with threats of flimsy lawsuits.

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