Comptroller or controller?
comptroller is a noun meaning “The chief accountant of a company or government”; controller is a noun meaning “One who controls something”. In written English (wordfreq, 2021 data) controller is about 11 times as common as comptroller.
What is the difference between comptroller and controller?
| comptroller | controller | |
|---|---|---|
| Part of speech | noun | noun |
| Meaning | The chief accountant of a company or government | One who controls something Any electric or mechanical device for controlling a circuit or system |
| Example | The terms of the licence shall, in default of agreement, be settled by the comptroller | The choice of controller is determined by the matrix verb. If, as in (30b) and (3la), the main verb does not subcategorize for an OBJ, then… |
| Forms | comptrollers | controllers |
| Pronunciation | /kəmpˈtɹoʊləɹ/ /kəmˈtɹoʊləɹ/ | /kənˈtɹəʊlə/ /kənˈtɹoʊlɚ/ |
| In writing | 1.2 times per million words | 13 times per million words |
Sources: comptroller and controller in the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Every current meaning of comptroller and controller
comptroller
- 1
The chief accountant of a company or government
The terms of the licence shall, in default of agreement, be settled by the comptroller
controller
- 1
One who controls something
- 2
Any electric or mechanical device for controlling a circuit or system
- 3
The chief accounting officer which audits, and manages the financial affairs of a company or government; a comptroller
- 4
A mechanism that controls or regulates the operation of a machine, especially a peripheral device in a computer
- 5
A hardware device designed to allow the user to play video games
- 6
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
- 7
The person who supervises and handles communication with an agent in the field
- 8
The subject of a control verb. See Control (linguistics)
The choice of controller is determined by the matrix verb. If, as in (30b) and (3la), the main verb does not subcategorize for an OBJ, then the controller is the matrix SUBJ. In…
Source: the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); obsolete, archaic, dialect and rare senses left out.
Which is more common, comptroller or controller?
comptroller appears 1.2 times per million words; controller 13 times per million words.
comptroller 1.2 times per million wordscontroller 13 times per million words
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How many people search comptroller vs controller?
“comptroller vs controller” is searched about 3,600 times a month on Google and 170 on Bing in the United States. Google counts close variants of a query together (“controller vs comptroller”, “comptroller or controller”).
Sources: Google Ads keyword data through DataForSEO and Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, the average month from September 2025 to August 2026.