Controlled

How to spell controlled

10 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce controlled

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does controlled mean?

1. verbPast tense of control: directed, commanded, or restrained something.
2. adjectiveKept within careful limits or under firm regulation.

Controlled in a sentence

• verb

  She controlled the budget so carefully that the project finished under cost.

• adjective

  The laboratory stores the samples in a tightly controlled environment.

• verb

  The pilot controlled the aircraft smoothly through the storm.

• adjective

  The medication is a controlled substance that requires a prescription.

Where does controlled come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This is the past form of the verb 'control', which traces back to the Medieval Latin word contrarotulare, meaning to check something against a duplicate record. That verb came from contrarotulus, a 'counter-roll', built from contra meaning 'against' and rotulus meaning a little roll or register; clerks kept a second roll of accounts to verify the first, and to 'control' originally meant to audit by this comparison. English took the word through Anglo-Norman and Old French (contreroller) in the late 1400s, and the sense gradually broadened from checking accounts to exercising power or restraint over something. The same rotulus root survives in 'roll' and 'rota', a reminder that the idea began with a literal scroll of records. The spelling trap lives in the suffix: 'control' ends in a single l, but when you add -ed the final consonant doubles to 'controlled', because the stress falls on that final syllable.

How the word is built

• contr(a)- (against, counter)
• rol (roll, register)
• -l- (doubled before suffix)
• -ed (past tense / adjective suffix)