Controllers

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A device or individual that regulates and manages activities within a system
2. An apparatus that governs the functioning of a machine or system ; an individual responsible for supervising and guiding operations or activities
3. Equipment used to regulate the performance and actions of devices or systems ; a professional who coordinates and controls tasks or workflows

Etymology: "Controllers" is the plural of "controller," and the story of that noun begins with a medieval clerk checking a list. The word descends from Medieval Latin "contrārotulātor," a formation built on "rotulus," a roll of parchment. A contrārotulātor was an official who kept a duplicate roll so that accounts could be verified against an original, a kind of counter-checker. That sense of checking one record against another passed into Anglo-Norman and Middle French as "contreroulour" and "contrerolleur," and entered Middle English as "countreroller." The word is a doublet of "comptroller," which came through the same French forms but was reshaped in English under the influence of "count" and "account." The two spellings were once simply variants of one official's title. Over the centuries the sense of checking a roll of accounts broadened into the general idea of supervising or directing something, and "control" itself grew out of the same Latin-based root, which is why the modern noun looks like a plain "control" with an agent suffix attached.

Synonyms: managers, supervisors, directors, regulators, administrators

Antonyms: subordinates, followers, employees, assistants, underlings