Controlling

How to spell controlling

11 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce controlling

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does controlling mean?

1. verbDirecting, regulating, or restraining something or someone; the present participle of control.
2. adjectiveTending to dominate or dictate the behaviour of others.

Controlling in a sentence

• verb

  The software is controlling the temperature inside the warehouse.

• adjective

  She finally left her controlling partner after years of pressure.

• verb

  A single committee was controlling the entire project budget.

• adjective

  His controlling management style drove several staff to resign.

Where does controlling come from?

Language of origin: French

This word grows from 'control', which English took from the Old French verb 'contreroller', itself based on the Medieval Latin 'contrarotulare'. That Latin term literally meant to check something against a 'contrarotulum', a counter-roll or duplicate register, formed from 'contra' meaning 'against' and 'rotulus' meaning 'a little roll' (the rolled parchment on which records were kept). A controller was originally an official who verified accounts by comparing them with a second copy, so the core idea was checking and keeping in order rather than domination. By the sixteenth century the sense had broadened from auditing records to exercising restraint or command over anything. The present-participle form 'controlling' adds '-ing' to 'control', and because the stress falls on the final syllable the single l doubles, which is exactly the spot writers second-guess.

How the word is built

• contr- (from contra: against)
• roll (from rotulus: a roll or register)
• -ing (present participle / adjective suffix; the final l doubles)