Word family noun informant information informer misinformation disinformation adjective informative ≠ uninformative informed ≠ uninformed verb inform misinform adverb informatively
From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishinformantin‧for‧mant /ɪnˈfɔːmənt $ -ɔːr-/ ●○○ noun [countable] 1 SCPTELLsomeone who secretly gives the police, the army etc information about someone else SYN informer One of the witnesses was a paid informant for the FBI.2 technicalSL someone who gives information about their language, social customs etc to someone who is studying themExamples from the Corpus
informant• Working as an informant, Johnson provided the FBI with details on the Mafia's criminal activities.• Betty Bell was the chief informant about Harold Shoosmith for she had been engaged for three mornings and three evenings a week.• Provenzano is suspected of having informants at senior levels, as well as friends among Sicily's left-wing politicians.• Key informants in universities and government agencies provided assistance in locating and gaining access to the relevant documents.• The schedule for these standard interviews will be piloted by extended semi-structured interviews with shop stewards and key management informants.• In the interview, it is stressed that the informant should direct the discussion because the ethnographer becomes the learner.• The informant showed gun crates marked with the names of Norinco and Poly Technologies to an undercover agent.• The establishment of personal relationships was not as crucial during the study of the known sector where informants had been randomly sampled.• It is also noticeable that slightly fewer men than women informants reveal any significant memory. 