Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun One that gives information.
  • noun One who informs against others; an informer.
  • noun One who furnishes linguistic or cultural information to a researcher.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Giving form; transmuting matter by communicating to it a form; informing.
  • noun One who informs or gives information; an informer.
  • noun Synonyms Informant, Informer. Informant is special, relating only to a given occasion: as, who was your informant? Informer may be special or general, relating to one occasion or, more commonly, to a practice or occupation, as implying a habit of informing, or a dishonorable betrayal of knowledge gained in confidence. It has acquired odious associations.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun obsolete One who, or that which, informs, animates, or vivifies.
  • noun One who imparts information or instruction.
  • noun Obs. or R. One who offers an accusation; an informer. See Informer.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun One who relays confidential information to someone, especially to the police; an informer.
  • noun linguistics One who provides information about their language.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun someone who sees an event and reports what happened
  • noun a person who supplies information

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin informans, participle of informo.

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word informant.

Examples

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.