1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Moderator

MODERATOR (from Lat. moderare, to impose a modus, limit), a judge or umpire, one who acts the part of mediator, and so a term used of the person chosen to be president of a meeting (as in America, of a town meeting). In academic use, the word was formerly applied to the public officer who presided over the exercises, &c., prescribed for candidates for degrees in the university schools; it is now used at Cambridge of one or two officers who are appointed each year to preside over the examination for the mathematical tripos, at Oxford of an examiner in the first public examination, known as “moderations,” and at Dublin of a candidate for honours in the examination for degree of Bachelor of Arts. In the Presbyterian churches the name is applied to the minister elected to preside over ecclesiastical meetings or assemblies, as the synod, presbytery or general assembly (see Presbyterianism). The name was historically given to a party of people who joined together to oppose the “Regulators,” another party who professed to administer justice in the Carolinas (1767–1771). Technically, the word is also used of a particular form of lamp, in which the flow of oil from the reservoir to the burner is regulated by a mechanical arrangement to which the name is applied.