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tight rein on, a
Idioms and Phrases
Strict control over, as in We told them to keep a tight rein on spending for the next year . This expression alludes to the narrow strap (rein) attached to a bit and used to control a horse's movements. Rein has been used to refer to any kind of restraint since the first half of the 1400s.Example Sentences
Scaramucci’s departure Monday is a good start, but Kelly will have to keep a tight rein on a White House staff that is used to few boundaries.
It doesn't wander as far afield as many French comics and animated features, but that just lets it keep a tight rein on a story that makes flawless emotional sense.
But while the £6m summer signing from Wigan is anxious to return, Bruce will keep a tight rein on a man he wants to have ready for the start of the next campaign.
He is the most powerful big-city mayor in the U.S., has the say-so over almost 7,000 municipal jobs, keeps tight rein on a nine-man city council whose makeup is determined not so much by personal ability as by quotas, e.g., five Catholics, three Protestants, one Jew.
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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
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