Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • transitive verb To examine carefully and critically, especially for flaws.
  • transitive verb To review or examine officially.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To view closely and critically; examine (a thing or place) in order to ascertain its quality or condition; especially, to examine officially in order to make a formal report.
  • Synonyms To scrutinize, investigate, oversee.
  • To look closely; examine: with into.
  • noun Inspection.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun obsolete Inspection.
  • transitive verb To look upon; to view closely and critically, esp. in order to ascertain quality or condition, to detect errors, etc., to examine; to scrutinize; to investigate.
  • transitive verb To view and examine officially, as troops, arms, goods offered, work done for the public, etc.; to oversee; to superintend.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb to examine critically or carefully; especially, to search out problems or determine condition; to scrutinize
  • verb to view and examine officially

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb examine carefully for accuracy with the intent of verification
  • verb look over carefully
  • verb come to see in an official or professional capacity

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[From Latin īnspicere, īnspect- : in-, intensive pref.; see in– + specere, to look at; see spek- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin inspectum, past participle of inspicere ("to look into"), from in + spicere ("to look at")

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