tide waiter

plural tide waiters · alternative tidewaiter

1. UKhistoricalA customs inspector at a seaport who oversees the landing of goods from merchant vessels in order to secure payment of duties.

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

   1892, Arthur Conan Doyle, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

   1 more example

   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.

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

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