investigatorn.

1538 T. Elyot Dict. Coryces, curious persons, crafty inuestigatours or serchers of mattiers.

c1550 Complaynt Scotl. (1979) vi. 36 The childir of seth..var the fyrst inuentours of the art of astronomie and inuestigatours of the celest coursis & mouimentis.

1608 E. Topsell Hist. Serpents 160 The Investigators of nature doe say, that they [sc. certain dragons] haue fifteene teeth of a side.

1677 F. Bampfield All in One 6 I am no investigator of new fictitious humane knowledges.

1751 W. Warburton in Wks. of Alexander Pope III. 231/2 The high court of Chancery, the most unerring investigator of Truth and Falsehood.

1794 R. J. Sulivan View of Nature II. xliv. 271 Father Simon, an accurate investigator, will have it, that they..were written by some Jewish Scribes.

1812 H. Davy Elements Chem. Philos. 25 The principal early chemical investigators.

1862 J. H. Burton Book-hunter ii. 101 The library is the great intellectual stratification in which the literary investigator works.

1923 Sci. Monthly June 609 Investigators of the sea floor have found all over the world masses of ooze which are composed almost entirely of these shells.

1971 Nature 15 Oct. 469/2 Other investigators who have scanned the North Polar spur and portions of other galactic spurs..at large solar zenith angles have not observed any enhancement at soft X-ray energies.

2006 Dermatol. Times Feb. 20/4 Investigators researching zebra fish found that a change in just one amino acid..plays a major role in determining skin color.

1845 Times 13 Oct. 8/1 The fact..that they had deemed it necessary to send down Mr. Austin to inquire into certain charges against this person..ought at least to have induced them to consult the report sent up by their official investigator.

1896 Daily Picayune (New Orleans) 26 Mar. Special Murder Investigator Barlow, of the district attorney's office, was closeted with the detectives for a time today.

1908 Evening Independent (Masillon, Ohio) 19 Aug. 7/4 To the surprise of..Senator Howe, who was the chief investigator, and all the rest of the Democrats, not a serious fault could be found with the entire Republican administration.

1972 Daily Tel. 21 Jan. 7/1 Department of Employment investigators, only 30 for the whole country, are too few to catch offenders.

2006 G. B. N. Ayittey in Nigeria's Struggle with Corruption: Hearing before Subcomm. on Africa, Global Human Rights of Comm. on Internat. Relations (U.S. House of Representatives, 109th Congr., 2nd Sess.) 54 Investigators probing money-laundering allegations found $52 million hidden in a network of 15 bank accounts.