Words / B2

in-FORM-uh-nt/ɪnˈfɔːmənt/

An informant is someone who supplies information, especially to police or researchers: a police informant; an ethnographic informant. Informer can sound like a snitch; source is looser in journalism. Anonymise each informant. Ethics and crime news. Do not call a cited textbook an informant.

Meaning

Someone who gives information, especially to the police or to a researcher.

Examples

• “The ethnography must anonymise each informant in the methods annex.”
• “A police informant was relocated, which is the crime-news sense.”

Good to know

a police / research informant. Journalism: source. Loaded twin: informer / snitch. Methods ethics. A person, not a book.

Near in meaning

source

New