I've noticed that some of my dress shoes have small notches cut out of one corner of the heel. What's up with that?
- Craig, Louisville, KY
Sometimes known as a "gentleman's notch" or "gentleman's corner," it's a practice some shoemakers employ to prevent your heel from getting caught on or snagging your pants' cuffs. They're often found more on American-made shoes, as cuffed trousers with a fuller break were common in the States historically. Today, the notches may not be as needed, but still signify a well-made pair of shoes.
adjective. Someone who is well-heeled is wealthy. The well-heeled diners tend to look away as they enter. Synonyms: prosperous, rich, wealthy, affluent More Synonyms of well-heeled. Collins COBUILD Advanced Learner's Dictionary.
So “well-heeled” just means rich. As someone else said, no hyphen, although I think that I have seen a hyphen on occasion. I have not, though, much, if ever, seen the word/phrase used negatively, just neutrally. It derives from the days when lots of people were too poor to afford good or new shoes.
Well-heeled, meaning “well-off, well-equipped or wealthy,” emerged in the late 19th century as an American slang word related to both a card player who had a good enough hand to be wealthy and a well-armed (with a firearm) man. The origins of these definitions are both related to being well-equipped in some manner.
Which should you use, well-healed or well-heeled? The adjective well-heeled, meaning wealthy, is used in informal English. Used before a noun, the adjective well-healed describes something that has healed well.
In "Old West" parlance, "going heeled" was to be carrying a weapon. Typically, though not necessarily limited to, carrying one or more (typically, though not always, visible) pistols. Self-protection and self-reliance was far more common on the frontier than in today's supposedly "more polite" society.
Introduction: My name is Dan Stracke, I am a homely, gleaming, glamorous, inquisitive, homely, gorgeous, light person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
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