Control

How to spell control

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce control

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does control mean?

1. verbTo direct, command, or restrain the behaviour or operation of something or someone.
2. nounThe power to direct, manage, or restrain something, or a device used to operate a machine.

Control in a sentence

• verb

  A thermostat helps you control the temperature of each room.

• noun

  The new manager took full control of the failing project.

• verb

  Strict budgets control how much each department can spend.

• noun

  The volume control on the old radio no longer turns smoothly.

Where does control come from?

Language of origin: French

Control comes from the Anglo-Norman and Old French contreroller, meaning 'to keep a copy of a roll of accounts', which in turn rests on the Medieval Latin contrarotulare. That Latin verb was built from contra, meaning 'against', and rotulus, meaning 'a roll' or 'a register', so the original idea was literally checking one record against a duplicate roll to verify it. The duplicate register itself was the 'counter-roll', and an official who audited accounts that way became a 'controller', a title that still survives in finance and aviation. English adopted the word in the fifteenth century, first in the bookkeeping sense of checking and verifying, and only later broadened it to the modern senses of restraining, directing, and holding power over something. The hidden 'rol' inside the spelling is the same rolled register, which is why control keeps its single 'l', unlike words such as 'patrol' that some writers wrongly try to double.

How the word is built

• contr- (from contra: against)
• rol (from rotulus: roll, register) = a check kept against a roll/register