controller

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. One that controls: a controller, not an observer of events.
2. n. An officer who audits accounts and supervises the financial affairs of a corporation or of a governmental body.
3. n. A regulating mechanism, as in a vehicle or electric device.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. 1. One who has charge of the receipt and expenditure of money.
2. n. Specifically—2. An officer who has certain duties to perform in examining the accounts and managing the financial affairs of a public or private corporation, or of a city, state, or government. Three controllers are employed by the government of the United States. The first controller examines and revises all civil accounts except those relating to customs and the postal service, and the latter also on appeal, and countersigns all warrants drawn by the Secretary of the Treasury for receiving and paying money, except those connected with post-office operations. The second controller has the same duties with reference to the accounts and warrants of the War and Navy departments. The controller of the currency administers the laws relating to the national banks. Some States and cities also have officers styled controllers, with similar duties. [In this sense often spelled comptroller, a false form (see etymology).]
3. n. One who controls or restrains; one who has the power or authority to govern or control; one who governs or regulates.
4. n. Specifically An officer who has certain duties to perform in examining the accounts and managing the financial affairs of a public or private corporation, or of a city, state, or government. Two controllers are employed by the government of the United States—the controller of the Treasury and the controller of the currency; the latter administers the laws relating to the national banks. There is also an assistant controller of the Treasury. Some States and cities also have officers styled controllers, with similar duties. [In this sense often spelled comptroller, a false form (see the etymology).]
5. n. In mech., a part of an apparatus or an adjunct which controls the motion or operation of the main part. Specifically, in elect, engin., a compact arrangement of switches, contacts, electromagnets, and rheostats, manipulated by one or more handles or hand-wheels, by means of which one or more electric motors, connected by electric wires to the controller, are started or stopped, or their speed is controlled: as, an electric street-car controller; an electric turret-turning controller.
6. n. In ship-building, a heavy iron block secured to the deck near a hawse-pipe, with a movable section so arranged that the chain cable passing over it is held or allowed to run out as the movable section is lowered or raised.

Wiktionary

1. n. One who controls something.
2. n. A person who audits, and manages the financial affairs of a company or government; a comptroller.
3. n. A mechanism that controls or regulates the operation of a machine, especially a peripheral device in a computer.
4. n. nautical An iron block, usually bolted to a ship's deck, for controlling the running out of a chain cable. The links of the cable tend to drop into hollows in the block, and thus hold fast until disengaged.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. One who, or that which, controls or restraines; one who has power or authority to regulate or control; one who governs.
2. n. An officer appointed to keep a counter register of accounts, or to examine, rectify, or verify accounts.
3. n. (Naut.) An iron block, usually bolted to a ship's deck, for controlling the running out of a chain cable. The links of the cable tend to drop into hollows in the block, and thus hold fast until disengaged.
4. n. (Elec.) Any electric device for controlling a circuit or system
5. n. An electromagnet, excited by the main current, for throwing a regulator magnet into or out of circuit in an automatic device for constant current regulation.
6. n. A kind of multiple switch for gradually admitting the current to, or shutting it off from, an electric motor.
7. n. (Mach.) A lever controlling the speed of an engine; -- applied esp. to the lever governing a throttle valve, as of a steam or gasoline engine, esp. on an automobile.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. a person who directs and restrains
2. n. a mechanism that controls the operation of a machine
3. n. someone who maintains and audits business accounts