quality control

American

noun

a system for verifying and maintaining a desired level of quality in an existing product or service by careful planning, use of proper equipment, continued inspection, and corrective action as required.

quality control British

noun

control of the relative quality of a manufactured product, usually by statistical sampling techniques

"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

Etymology

Origin of quality control

First recorded in 1930–35

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:

quality control

This allows for dose customization but isn’t subject to the same reviews for safety, efficacy or consistency, and may carry added risks related to quality control, potency variation or contamination.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 23, 2026

The production increase signals improving quality control, crucial for Boeing to boost earnings and free cash flow.

From Barron's ● May 27, 2026

Under normal conditions, SEL1L acts as part of the cell's quality control system by identifying damaged or misfolded proteins and marking them for destruction.

From Science Daily ● May 21, 2026

It has said that quality control measures, which usually remove such responses, were not applied due to human error.

From BBC ● Mar. 26, 2026

Moreover, if this trade-off is not acknowledged, there is a tendency to deny or cover up the inevitable defective items, which makes the job of quality control that much more difficult.

From "Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and Its Consequences" by John Allen Paulos

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023