Noun
He has people working for him, but he has a tight rein on every part of the process.
after the president resigned, the vice president stepped in and took the reins of the company Verb
try to rein in your spending, so you have some money left for saving
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Noun
Musk, who already runs multiple companies including Tesla and SpaceX, served as chief executive of the social network before handing over the reins to Yaccarino.—Los Angeles Times, 9 July 2025 Like in old Westerns: the cowboy hops off his horse and flips the reins around the hitching post.—Bill Hoogterp, Fortune, 6 July 2025
Verb
But no one has pieced together the full account of what the drugmaker Celgene did, how federal regulators failed to rein it in and what the story reveals about unrestrained drug pricing in America.—David Armstrong, CNN Money, 10 May 2025 Many of those groups have not been brought under the control of new national military, and Syria’s authorities have shown little capacity to rein them in.—Ephrat Livni, New York Times, 2 May 2025 See All Example Sentences for rein
Word History
Etymology
Noun
Middle English reine, from Anglo-French resne, reine, from Vulgar Latin *retina, from Latin retinēre to restrain — more at retain
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