inspectioneer

English

Etymology 1

From inspection +‎ -eer.

Noun

inspectioneer (plural inspectioneers)

1. (nonstandard) One who carries out an inspection; an inspector.
   • 1946, United States. Congress, Congressional Record: Proceedings and Debates..., page 10654:

     Javert was the very incarnation of devotion to duty, fictionally, but he was an unstable character compared to some of our inspectioneers in government.

   • 1969, Adriaan Jacob Barnouw, Monthly Letters on the Culture and History of the Netherlands, page 275:

     But linguistic “inspectioneers” who take the trouble of comparing Murray and Bradley's account of the word with that of Webster must wonder why the latter ignored or refused to follow the New English Dictionary's lead.

Etymology 2

By mistaken association with inspection.

Noun

inspectioneer (plural inspectioneers)

1. Synonym of specksioneer (“chief harpooner”)
   • 1922, Charles Edward Smith, From the Deep of the Sea, page 55:

     He said that all the ship's provisions and stores would be locked up, and the keys given to the inspectioneer […]

   • 1958, Blackwood's Magazine, volume 283, page 9:

     His grandfather had used it to hunt the Greenland whale in the days when the whaling-ships came to the islands for their best inspectioneers.