tide waiter

• tidewaiter

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tide waiter (plural tide waiters)

1. (UK, historical) A customs inspector at a seaport who oversees the landing of goods from merchant vessels in order to secure payment of duties.
   • 1892, Arthur Conan Doyle, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes‎:

     
     "Your morning letters, if I remember right, were from a fish-monger and a tide-waiter."

   • 1726, Jonathan Swift, Reasons against the Bill for settling the Tithe of Hemp, &c. by a Modus:

     Great employments are and will be in the hands of Englishmen; nothing left for the younger sons of Irishmen, but vicarages, tidewaiters places, &c. therefore no reason to make them worse.

2. A person who watches public opinion before declaring their own.

• tide surveyor