Word.ws English Dictionary

put on the brakes

put on the brakes is the alternative form of put the brakes on.

Meaning of put the brakes on

Verb

put the brakes on (third-person singular simple present puts the brakes on, present participle putting the brakes on, simple past and past participle put the brakes on)

  1. (idiomatic, transitive) To stop (an event, action, or process) or to slow it down.
    • "[T]he fight I saw that day made the others look like a young ladies' quadrille. . . . [Y]ou could no more separate them two than you could put the brakes on a blame earthquake."1903, Frank Norris, “Two Hearts That Beat as One”, in A Deal in Wheat and Other Stories of the New and Old West
  2. (idiomatic, intransitive) To cease to perform one's current activity or to decrease one's level of activity.
    • "It would have been so easy for him to have the kids rolling on the floor, doubled up with laughter. So he had to put the brakes on at times."1989 July, Nancy Griffin, “Poetry Man: Robin Williams and Dead Poets Society”, in Premiere Magazine, retrieved 31 May 2015
    Synonyms:
    rein in

Forms of put on the brakes

third-person singular presentputs on the brakes
present participleputting on the brakes
past participleput on the brakes
pastput on the brakes

Questions about put on the brakes

What is put on the brakes the alternative form of?
Put on the brakes is the alternative form of put the brakes on.

Words near put on the brakes in the dictionary

  1. put on one's own oxygen mask first
  2. put on one's oxygen mask first
  3. put on one's pants one leg at a time
  4. put on one's trousers one leg at a time
  5. put on the block
  6. put on the brakes
  7. put on the dog
  8. put on the kibosh
  9. put on the long finger
  10. put on the map
  11. put on the pounds

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: put on the brakes (page history and authors); put the brakes on (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “put on the brakes.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/put_on_the_brakes. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.