Ethylene‐insensitive proteins (EIN3/EIL) are a class of nuclear localization proteins with DNA‐binding activity. EIL is an important gene family in plants, and plays key roles in the ethylene signaling pathway which regulates a broad spectrum of plant growth and development, as well as defenses to various biological and abiotic stresses. Although genome‐wide analyses of EIL gene family has been carried out for several plant species, no comprehensive analysis of this family in Triticum aestivum L. has been reported so far. Furthermore, there are few scattered studies on the functions of EIL genes in wheat. It is necessary to comprehensively identify and analyze the EIL gene family in wheat. In this study, BLASTp were used to identify EIL genes in the lately released reference genome of T. aestivum. The 21 TaEIL genes were sought, which can be divided into three groups (a, b, and c) according to phylogenetic relationship. The nonsynonymous/synonymous substitution rates (Ka/Ks) value showed that three homologous pairs (TaEILb.4/TaEILb.6, TaEILa.8/TaEILa.7, and TaEILa.8/TaEILa.9) experienced strongly purifying selection. The remaining 16 homologous pairs underwent positive selection with an evolutionary acceleration. Analysis of gene structure and motif, protein features, and three‐dimensional structure showed that TaEILs were similar with EILs in other species such as Arabidopsis, rice, and maize. Homology analyses of EIL in T. aestivum and its progenitors showed that EIL gene discarded some redundant genes during the domestication evolution of T. aestivum and retained some useful genes. Gene expression patterns analyses and transient agro‐infiltration assays showed that group b and group c members of TaEIL were involved in the resistance to pathogen. Our study provides a new perspective for studying feature functions of TaEILs, and will help in revealing the regulatory network of wheat development and stress response, thus contributing to the improvement of molecular breeding of wheat quality traits.