informant
Americannoun
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a person who informs or gives information; informer.
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a person who supplies social or cultural data in answer to the questions of an investigator.
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Linguistics. a native speaker of a language who supplies utterances and forms for one analyzing or learning the language.
noun
Etymology
Origin of informant
1655–65; < Latin infōrmant- (stem of infōrmāns ) present participle of infōrmāre. See inform 1, -ant
Explanation
An informant is someone who secretly provides information to police, the FBI, or another law enforcement agency. If you watch a lot of crime shows on TV, you're probably familiar with informants. In the world of law enforcement, informants are officially called CIs, for "confidential informant" or "criminal informant." The information informants provide can be useful in catching criminals, and the informant usually gets something in return — money or a reduced prison sentence, for example. Sometimes informant simply means "person who gives information."
Vocabulary lists containing informant
Because They Marched
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"The Macbeth Murder Mystery" by James Thurber
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Unit 8: Vocabulary from Readings
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
To convict him, the state relied on the testimony of a paid jailhouse informant, while no physical evidence suggested he was present at the crime scene.
From Slate • Apr. 20, 2026
Only recently has Tennessee acknowledged that it used a paid informant.
From Slate • Apr. 20, 2026
Victims of the extortion racket include two women who were arrested last month after a police informant said he had seen them kissing in the northern Ugandan city of Arua.
From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 22, 2026
Sometimes it plays out smoothly, like when he talks Roman history with informant Frank Pentangeli in “Part II,” letting him know that his family would be taken care of should he die.
From Los Angeles Times • Feb. 17, 2026
Horst, the informant, was soon driving around East Berlin in his reward—a new car.
From "Fallout: Spies, Superbombs, and the Ultimate Cold War Showdown" by Steve Sheinkin
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
