informant

See also: Informant

English

Etymology

inform +‎ -ant

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ɪnˈfɔːmənt/
• (US) IPA^(key): /ɪnˈfɔɹmənt/

• Audio (UK)

  (file)

Noun

informant (plural informants)

1. One who relays confidential information to someone, especially to the police; an informer.
   • 2022 October 16, Jenna Scherer, “An enticing House Of The Dragon crowns Westeros' new ruler”, in AV Club‎^[1]:

     One of her chief informants is Alicent’s handmaiden Talya (Alexis Rabin), whose inside info runs so deep that she’s the first to catch wind of Viserys’ death.

2. (linguistics) A native speaker who acts as a linguistic reference for a language being studied. The informant demonstrates native pronunciation, provides grammaticality judgments regarding linguistic well-formedness, and may also explain cultural references and other important contextual information.
   • 1977, A. E. Kibrik, The methodology of field investigations in linguistics

     The only material the linguist has to begin with are the informant's grammatical utterances in the target language pronounced arbitrarily in a natural or assigned communicative situation or stimulated artificially by the investigator.

   • 2003, Sergei Nirenburg, H. L. Somers, Yorick Wilks, Readings in machine translation (page 116)

     The informant learns his language by formal training and, more importantly, by constant exposure to its use. He cannot repeat to the linguist what he has never seen or heard.

Synonyms

• See Thesaurus:informant

Translations

one who relays confidential information

• Albanian: please add this translation if you can
• Arabic: مُخْبِر‎ m (muḵbir), مُخْبِرة‎ f (muḵbira)
• Armenian: please add this translation if you can
• Belarusian: інфарма́тар m (infarmátar), інфарма́тарка f (infarmátarka)
• Bulgarian: доно́сник (bg) m (donósnik), доно́сница f (donósnica), доно́сничка f (donósnička), информа́тор (bg) m (informátor), информа́торка f (informátorka)
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 提供消息的人 (tígōng xiāoxī de rén), 告密者 (zh) (gàomìzhě), 線人 (zh), 线人 (zh) (xiànrén), 舉報人, 举报人 (jǔbàorén), 檢舉人, 检举人 (jiǎnjǔrén)

• Czech: informátor m, informátorka f
• Danish: informant c
• Esperanto: please add this translation if you can
• Estonian: please add this translation if you can
• Finnish: informantti, ilmiantaja (fi)
• French: informateur (fr) m, informatrice (fr) f
• Georgian: please add this translation if you can
• German: Informant (de) m, Informantin (de) f
• Greek: πληροφοριοδότης (el) m (pliroforiodótis)

  Ancient: συκοφάντης m (sukophántēs)

• Hungarian: besúgó (hu)
• Italian: delatore (it) m, informatore (it) m, spia (it)
• Japanese: 情報提供者 (じょうほうていきょうしゃ, jōhō teikyōsha), インフォーマント (infōmanto)
• Kurdish:

  Central Kurdish: ئاگادار‎ (ku) (agadar)

• Latin: dēlātor m
• Latvian: please add this translation if you can
• Lithuanian: please add this translation if you can
• Macedonian: кодош m (kodoš)
• Maori: kaiwhāki, kaiwhakaatu
• Old English: melda m
• Polish: informator (pl) m, informatorka (pl) f
• Portuguese: informante (pt) m or f, delator (pt) m
• Romanian: informator (ro) m, informatoare (ro) f
• Russian: осведоми́тель (ru) m (osvedomítelʹ), осведоми́тельница (ru) f (osvedomítelʹnica), информа́тор (ru) m (informátor)
• Slovak: informátor m, informátorka f
• Spanish: informante (es) m or f
• Tagalog: tagahimaton, impormante
• Turkish: please add this translation if you can
• Ukrainian: інформа́тор m (informátor), інформа́торка f (informátorka)

lingustics: native speaker who acts as a reference

• Finnish: informantti
• Hungarian: adatközlő (hu), adatszolgáltató

See also

• name names

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Catalan

Verb

informant

1. present participle of informar

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Dutch

Etymology

Borrowed, more probably from French or German than from English due to the word's ultimate stress.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˌɪn.fɔrˈmɑnt/

• Audio

  (file)

• Hyphenation: in‧for‧mant
• Rhymes: -ɑnt

Noun

informant m (plural informanten, diminutive informantje n)

1. informer, informant

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French

Participle

informant

1. present participle of informer

Further reading

• “informant”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

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Latin

Verb

īnfōrmant

1. third-person plural present active indicative of īnfōrmō