![set back on one's heels set back on one's heels](https://www.tekportal.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/set-back-on-ones-heels.jpg)
Surprise, shock, or disconcert, as in The news of their divorce set us back on our heels. This idiom, with its graphic image of someone being pushed back, dates from the first half of the 1900s.
Surprise, shock, or disconcert, as in The news of their divorce set us back on our heels. This idiom, with its graphic image of someone being pushed back, dates from the first half of the 1900s.