informant

American  

[in-fawr-muhnt] / ɪnˈfɔr mənt /

noun

• informants
  plural

1. a person who informs or gives information; informer.

   Synonyms:

   tipster, adviser, source

2. a person who supplies social or cultural data in answer to the questions of an investigator.

3. Linguistics. a native speaker of a language who supplies utterances and forms for one analyzing or learning the language.

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informant British  

/ ɪnˈfɔːmənt /

noun

1. a person who gives information about a thing, a subject being studied, etc

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• informants
  plural

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."

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

informant informants

Bowie told the informant that she would "make it a point to have picnics by the capital to observe" and learn about security measures, the complaint alleges.

From Barron's ● Aug. 20, 2026

Berger, a former informant known, according to Mr. Oltermann, for his “monkish asceticism,” embodied a “sense of poetic mission”—though his own verse talents were minimal.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 12, 2026

Vincent Pastore, best known for playing gangster informant Salvatore “Big Pussy” Bonpensiero on HBO’s “The Sopranos,” has died.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 1, 2026

In The Sopranos, Pastore played Tony Soprano's best friend who ultimately became an informant for the FBI.

From BBC ● Aug. 1, 2026

One of the guests reported his statement to a local Union informant, who passed the tip along to soldiers who were now at the door at Hartmann Richter’s place to pick up Atzerodt.

From "Chasing Lincoln's Killer" by James L. Swanson

A former director at the Southern Poverty Law Center was arrested for allegedly overseeing secret payments to informants from white supremacist groups, federal authorities said Wednesday.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 12, 2026

Security expert Abdullahi Abdullahi said he believed armed groups are not just getting help from security forces, but from civilian informants.

From BBC ● Jul. 27, 2026

In that ruling, the top court had said that Muslim men who were placed on the government's no-fly list because they refused to serve as FBI informants could seek to hold federal agents financially liable.

From BBC ● Jun. 23, 2026

U.S. citizen Thomas Pauken II pleaded guilty to acting as an unregistered Chinese agent, having received at least $100,000 for recruiting informants, providing communication devices, and relaying intelligence to handlers in China.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 9, 2026

Ti Jean is also one of Farmer’s chief informants on local beliefs.

From "Mountains Beyond Mountains" by Tracy Kidder and Michael French