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
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
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.
She had faced prosecution despite being an informant in an anti-corruption probe by the Nigerian authorities.
From BBC • Jun. 17, 2026
The defence case of Olatimbo Ayinde, the oil industry executive who was also found not guilty by the jury, was she had been working as an informant for the Nigerian authorities to expose corruption.
From BBC • Jun. 17, 2026
Columnist Clarence Page writes that “a key question will be whether prosecutors can distinguish SPLC’s informant practices from those long used by law enforcement.”
From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 30, 2026
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
I did not wish to seem too eager, or to let my informant know or guess too much, so, thanking him in the usual manner, I strolled away.
From "Dracula" by Bram Stoker
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.
