From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishact as a brake on somethingact as a brake on somethingSLOWto make something develop more slowly, be more difficult to do, or happen less Rises in interest rates act as a brake on expenditure. → brake
Examples from the Corpus
act as a brake on something• To what extent do girls act as brakes on, or motivators of, delinquent behaviour in masculine adolescent gang-culture, for example?• Post-war development of parachutes acting as brakes on jet aircraft are also covered in this rarely written about subject.• Unfortunately, widespread foot-dragging continues to act as a brake on debt relief.• In April 1992 they persuaded Boris Yeltsin to put three industrialists into the government to act as a brake on the free-marketeers. 