control
[kuhn-trohl]
- to exercise restraint or direction over; dominate; command: The car is difficult to control at high speeds. That zone is controlled by enemy troops.
- to hold in check; curb: to control a horse; to control one's emotions.
- to test or verify (a scientific experiment) by a parallel experiment or other standard of comparison.
- to eliminate or prevent the flourishing or spread of: to control a forest fire.
- Obsolete. to check or regulate (transactions), originally by means of a duplicate register.
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- the act or power of controlling; regulation; domination or command: Who's in control here?
- the situation of being under the regulation, domination, or command of another: The car is out of control.
- check or restraint: Her anger is under control.
- a legal or official means of regulation or restraint: to institute wage and price controls.
- Statistics. control variable(def 1).
- a person who acts as a check; controller.
- a device for regulating and guiding a machine, as a motor or airplane.
- controls, a coordinated arrangement of such devices.
- prevention of the flourishing or spread of something undesirable: rodent control.
- Baseball. the ability of a pitcher to throw the ball into the strike zone consistently: The rookie pitcher has great power but no control.
- Philately. any device printed on a postage or revenue stamp to authenticate it as a government issue or to identify it for bookkeeping purposes.
- a spiritual agency believed to assist a medium at a séance.
- the supervisor to whom an espionage agent reports when in the field.
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- control for, Statistics. to account for (variables in an analysis) by limiting the data under consideration to a comparison of like things: to control for demographic factors.
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Origin of control
Synonyms for control
Synonym study
6. See authority.
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
control
- to command, direct, or ruleto control a country
- to check, limit, curb, or regulate; restrainto control one's emotions; to control a fire
- to regulate or operate (a machine)
- to verify (a scientific experiment) by conducting a parallel experiment in which the variable being investigated is held constant or is compared with a standard
- to regulate (financial affairs)
- to examine and verify (financial accounts)
- to restrict or regulate the authorized supply of (certain substances, such as drugs)
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- power to direct or determineunder control; out of control
- a means of regulation or restraint; curb; checka frontier control
- (often plural) a device or mechanism for operating a car, aircraft, etc
- a standard of comparison used in a statistical analysis or scientific experiment
- a device that regulates the operation of a machine. A dynamic control is one that incorporates a governor so that it responds to the output of the machine it regulates
- (as modifier)control panel; control room
- spiritualism an agency believed to assist the medium in a séance
- Also called: control mark a letter, or letter and number, printed on a sheet of postage stamps, indicating authenticity, date, and series of issue
- one of a number of checkpoints on a car rally, orienteering course, etc, where competitors check in and their time, performance, etc, is recorded
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Word Origin for control
C15: from Old French conteroller to regulate, from contrerolle duplicate register, system of checking, from contre- counter- + rolle roll
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Word Origin and History for pre-control
control
early 14c., "to check, verify, regulate," from Anglo-French contreroller "exert authority," from Medieval Latin contrarotulus "a counter, register," from Latin contra- "against" (see contra) + rotulus, diminutive of rota "wheel" (see roll (n.)). From a medieval method of checking accounts by a duplicate register. Sense of "dominate, direct" is mid-15c. Related: Controlled; controlling.
Control group in scientific experiments is attested from 1952 (from a sense of control attested since 1875).
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control
1580s, from control (v.). Control freak is late 1960s slang.
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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper
control
(kən-trōl′)- To verify or regulate a scientific experiment by conducting a parallel experiment or by comparing with another standard.
- To hold in restraint; check.
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- A standard of comparison for checking or verifying the results of an experiment.
- An individual or group used as a standard of comparison in a control experiment.
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The American Heritage® Stedman's Medical Dictionary
Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company.
control
[kən-trōl′]
- A standard of comparison for checking or verifying the results of an experiment. In an experiment to test the effectiveness of a new drug, for example, one group of subjects (the control group) receives an inactive substance or placebo , while a comparison group receives the drug being tested.
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The American Heritage® Science Dictionary
Copyright © 2011. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
Idioms and Phrases with pre-control
control
see out of control; spin control.
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The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary
Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.