rein up

English

Verb

rein up (third-person singular simple present reins up, present participle reining up, simple past and past participle reined up)

1. (intransitive) To bring a ridden animal to a halt by pulling on the reins.
   • 1856: Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary, Part III Chapter X, translated by Eleanor Marx-Aveling

     He said to himself that no doubt they would save her; the doctors would discover some remedy surely. He remembered all the miraculous cures he had been told about. Then she appeared to him dead. She was there; before his eyes, lying on her back in the middle of the road. He reined up, and the hallucination disappeared.

2. (transitive) To fit reins on (a horse).
   • [1877], Anna Sewell, “Earlshall”, in Black Beauty: […], London: Jarrold and Sons, […], →OCLC, part II, page 103:

     "Well," said York, "if they come here, they must wear the bearing rein. I prefer a loose rein myself, and his lordship is always very reasonable about horses; but my lady—that's another thing, she will have style; and if her carriage horses are not reined up tight, she wouldn't look at them. […]"

3. (transitive) To stop, to cause to come to a halt.

Anagrams

• punier, purine, unripe