controller
Americannoun
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an employee, often an officer, of a business firm who checks expenditures, finances, etc.; comptroller.
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a person who regulates, directs, or restrains.
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British Aeronautics. a dispatcher.
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a regulating mechanism; governor.
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Also called control unit, processor. Computers. the key component of a device, as a terminal, printer, or external storage unit, that contains the circuitry necessary to interpret and execute instructions fed into the device.
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Digital Technology. a remote piece of hardware used to direct or control an electronic device.
a video game controller.
noun
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a person who directs, regulates, or restrains
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Also called: comptroller. a business executive or government officer who is responsible for financial planning, control, etc
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the equipment concerned with controlling the operation of an electrical device
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of controller
First recorded in 1350–1400; Middle English countrollour, from Anglo-French countrero(u)llour, Middle French contrerolleur, equivalent to contrerolle “duplicate roll” + -eur, -our, from Latin -ōr- or -ātōr- noun suffixes; see control, -or 2, -ator
Explanation
The device that's used to operate a tool or machine is a controller. When you play video games, you move your character around on screen using a joystick or controller. A controller is any object or person that controls something. An air traffic controller is a person who usually works in a control tower at an airport and is in charge of monitoring and directing pilots to make sure planes take off and land safely. Another kind of human controller, also known as a comptroller, is the person in charge of accounting and finances at a business or organization. These controllers have the important job of being in control of the money.
Vocabulary lists containing controller
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
The air traffic controller said in its statement, originally written in Spanish: "Our full support goes out to the crews and passengers who are increasingly having to endure these situations."
From BBC ● Jul. 22, 2026
In the first, on June 13, a controller lost primary radar but failed to switch to backup radar, the FAA said.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 15, 2026
In the new study, Zhou and colleagues used super-resolution imaging on neurons grown in the laboratory and found that the MPS behaves more like a cellular traffic controller, regulating all major forms of endocytosis.
From Science Daily ● Jul. 15, 2026
“I don’t have any radar,” a Newark controller told a flight crew during the outage, “and I can’t protect you.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 15, 2026
Maya belly flops onto her bed and grabs a controller off the floor.
From "The Hate U Give" by Angie Thomas
He added that "good pest controllers always, always kill them in a humane manner".
From BBC ● Jul. 24, 2026
The Newark-area controllers also oversee traffic for Teterboro Airport in New Jersey, which has been the subject of an FAA safety review.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 15, 2026
The controllers are slated to return to the New York Terminal Radar Approach Control facility, where they worked before the move.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 15, 2026
Before the incident, controllers can be heard warning of the presence of fireworks.
From BBC ● Jul. 5, 2026
They played basketball and baseball outside and football video games in the house—sitting on the floor or couch, with controllers in their hands.
From "A Deadly Wandering: A Mystery, a Landmark Investigation, and the Astonishing Science of Attention in the Digital Age" by Matt Richtel
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
