Controller

How to spell controller

10 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce controller

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does controller mean?

1. nounA person who directs, manages, or regulates something, especially finances or operations.
2. nounA device or mechanism that regulates or operates equipment, such as a game pad or a system regulator.

Controller in a sentence

• The financial controller signed off on the quarterly accounts.

• He plugged the wireless controller into the games console.

• The air traffic controller guided each plane to its runway.

• The heating controller keeps the office at a steady temperature.

Where does controller come from?

Language of origin: French

This word grows out of the verb 'control', which English borrowed from Anglo-Norman French in the late 1300s. The French contreroller meant 'to check accounts against a duplicate register', and it came from medieval Latin contrarotulus, literally a 'counter-roll', made from contra 'against' and rotulus 'a little wheel or roll', the parchment scroll on which accounts were written. A controller, then, was originally the official who kept the counter-roll and audited spending, which is why the word still smells of finance and oversight today. The fancier spelling 'comptroller', still seen on some official titles, came from a mistaken sixteenth-century guess that the first part linked to French compte 'account'; it is pronounced the same and is really just controller in disguise. The double 'l' in the modern spelling is the usual trap, since the agent ending '-er' attaches to 'control' without changing the existing 'l'.

How the word is built

• contr(a)- (against, counter)
• roll (a register, from medieval Latin rotulus 'roll')
• -er (agent/instrument suffix)

Words that sound like controller

They sound the same but mean different things, so the meaning decides which spelling to write.

• comptroller: A senior official who supervises the financial accounts of a company or public body.