Definitions

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

  • noun An informant, especially one who informs against others for compensation.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun One who informs or animates.
  • noun One who imparts intelligence or gives information; an informant.
  • noun In law, one who communicates to a magistrate a knowledge of a violation of law; a person who lays an information against or prosecutes in the courts one who offends against the law or any penal statute.
  • noun Hence One who makes a business of informing against others; a mischief-maker.
  • noun Synonyms Informant, Informer. See informant.

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

  • noun obsolete One who informs, animates, or inspires.
  • noun One who informs, or imparts knowledge or news.
  • noun (Law) One who informs a magistrate of violations of law; one who informs against another for violation of some law or penal statute.
  • noun (Law) one who habitually gives information of the violation of penal statutes, with a view to a prosecution therefor.

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

  • noun One who informs someone else about something.
  • noun A person who tells authorities about improper or illegal activity.

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

  • noun one who reveals confidential information in return for money

Etymologies

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Examples

  • To turn these facts into "Socialist icon who became an informer" is itself (sorry, but it's irresistible)

    The Complete Works of George Orwell (reviews) 1999

  • He, however, declined the risk, declaring it was impossible to capture the schooner with boats, and as she was a remarkably fast sailer, she was sure to escape; should the enterprise not succeed, he would become known as the informer, and be no longer able to act as pilot in the Bahama Channel.

    How Britannia Came to Rule the Waves Updated to 1900 William Henry Giles Kingston 1847

  • Maj Klopper was shown a document in which one of the informers accidentally signed under his real name, which Col de Kock had deleted and put in a note saying that the informer was a covert agent.

    ANC Daily News Briefing 1995

  • If Mr. Harcourt has been told by any one that the Lagden Commission recommended any of these pitiless iniquities, then we are afraid that his informer is a romancer of the superlative degree.

    Chapter XVI Solomon Tshekisho 1916

  • The informer was a trifle disconcerted, but he soon recovered himself, and proceeded in a declamatory manner:

    The Malady of the Century Max Simon Nordau 1886

  • But he thought it better to avoid mentioning that the informer was his own son Johnnie.

    Alec Forbes of Howglen George MacDonald 1864

  • The Guardian newspaper published an interview Wednesday with Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi, who has been identified as the informer called "Curveball," whose claims about weapon labs formed part of then-U.S. secretary of state Colin Powell's speech to the United Nations Security Council in 2003, shortly before the war began.

    Thestar.com - Home Page 2011

  • His wife, Carrie Twomey, told the newspaper she lived in constant fear of reprisals for her husband being labelled an informer.

    Telegraph.co.uk - Telegraph online, Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph Telegraph Staff 2012

  • The Guardian newspaper published an interview Wednesday with Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi, who has been identified as the informer called "Curveball," whose claims about weapon labs formed part of then-U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell's speech to the U.N. Security Council in 2003, shortly before the war began.

    Breaking News: CBS News 2011

  • They did not investigate the character of the informers, but in their suspicious mood listened to all manner of statements, and seized and imprisoned some of the most respectable citizens on the evidence of wretches; they thought it better to sift the matter and discover the truth; and they would not allow even a man of good character, against whom an accusation was brought, to escape without a thorough investigation, merely because the informer was a rogue.

    The History of the Peloponnesian War Thucydides 2007

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