Hello once more,

I’m all about idioms these days. This time it’s “feeling heels”, which I cannot find anywhere.

This follows an episode where the owners take the cat to the vet to be neutered; everything seems to be ok but the cat escapes from the cage and there’s a big fuss and, of course, the owners are not happy because the cat must have suffered with the situation. Thus she says:

Feeling absolute heels - it was nobody’s fault that he’d escaped but it must have been a terrible experience for him [...] - we took him home.

I understand that it must mean something like “very upset” or “mad as a hatter” but I’d really like to understand better how it is formed (if I can say so..). Can it have something to do with “head over heels”, in that you loose your sense of direction?

Thank you,
Ana

To quote YourDictionary, a heel is “a despicable or unscrupulous person; cad”.  That seems to be the meaning here.

Achilles was chilled by his heel, and the heel that did it.

Thank you,

Ana

I’m all about idioms these days. This time it’s “feeling heels”, which I cannot find anywhere.

There is an idiom, “to feel like a heel,” meaning to feel ashamed or sorry:

I didn’t mean to upset you. I feel like a heel. [i.e., a jerk]

This expression uses ACB’s definition of heel.