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

You could argue that an informant has to participate to some degree in order to stay inside these groups.

From Slate ● Aug. 22, 2026

She added to the informant on an encrypted messaging app that she had "picked up some anarchist literature at the social justice center" which "could have some good tips."

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

Lane would spot his attacker in Las Vegas, and it turned out to be Davis’ cousin Anderson, the informant told police.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 12, 2026

Perhaps most damagingly, two private eyes, including one from the Burns agency, tried to expose the bureau’s main informant, Kelsie Morrison.

From "Killers of the Flower Moon" by David Grann

In 1962, a full 17 percent of the membership was reported to be federal informants.

From Slate ● Sep. 18, 2026

We learn that in Romania, for example, the leper colony of Tichilești was one of the only places in the country to lack state informants under the totalitarian Ceaușescu dictatorship.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 4, 2026

It said they identified those behind the abduction and dismantled their support network, including informants and hideouts in the Old Oyo National Park forest.

From BBC ● Jul. 11, 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

While the detectives were trying to establish a connection between the slayings of Charles Whitehorn and Anna Brown, Comstock passed on tidbits that he collected from his network of informants.

From "Killers of the Flower Moon" by David Grann