A surveyor is someone whose job is to look at something carefully and officially, and then report on it. There are two main kinds and they do quite different work. A land surveyor goes out with instruments and measures land — where the boundaries run, how high the ground is, what shape the site is — so that maps can be drawn and buildings can be placed correctly. A building surveyor (very common in Britain) inspects a house and writes a report on its condition: is the roof sound, are there cracks, is it worth the price? In Britain, if you buy a house, you hire a surveyor first, and "the surveyor's report" is a normal part of the conversation. In American English that person is more often called a home inspector, and surveyor tends to mean the land kind. There is a third, looser use too: a surveyor can be anyone conducting a survey of opinions, though people usually say "researcher" or "interviewer" for that.