What does "control" mean?

Control: That which serves to check, restrain, or hinder; restraint. "Speak without control." Dryden.

Additional senses

  1. 2.Power or authority to check or restrain; restraining or regulating influence; superintendence; government; as, children should be under parental control. The House of Commons should exercise a control over all the departments of the executive administration. Macaulay. Board of control. See under Board.
  2. 3.To check by a counter register or duplicate account; to prove by counter statements; to confute. [Obs.] This report was controlled to be false. Fuller.
  3. 4.To exercise restraining or governing influence over; to check; to counteract; to restrain; to regulate; to govern; to overpower. Give me a staff of honor for mine age, But not a scepter to control the world. Shak. I feel my virtue struggling in my soul: But stronger passion does its power control. Dryden.

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