controller
noun
Simple meaning
The chief accounting officer which audits, and manages the financial affairs of a company or government.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
kuhntrohlerSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
kəntˈɹoʊlɚ
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
electronics
Any electric or mechanical device for controlling a circuit or system.
One who controls something.
business
The chief accounting officer which audits, and manages the financial affairs of a company or government; a comptroller.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B1 · Intermediate
- Frequency
- Common
- Typical Use
- Varies by meaning
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: The chief accounting officer which audits, and manages the financial affairs of a company or government; a comptroller.
Used this way, controller is a specialist word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. This is a financial use: it has a settled meaning in accounting and business, where precision matters more than colour.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Specialist/technical
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Specialized
- Connotation
- Clinical and technical
- Usage feel
- Technical and specialized
Where it naturally appears
- Finance/economics
- Business/professional
- Government/politics
Usage note
In general conversation this sense usually needs explaining — outside its field, people reach for a plainer word.
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use controller
- “The speed controller on his turntable was not working properly.”noun
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
A circuit or chip that translates commands into a form that can control a hard disk drive.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.