informant

Word family

Related topics: Police

1 SCPTELLsomeone who secretly gives the police, the army etc information about someone else 〔向警方、军队等〕提供秘密消息者，线人，告密者 SYN informer

One of the witnesses was a paid informant for the FBI.

目击者之一是联邦调查局出钱雇用的线人。

2. technicalSL someone who gives information about their language, social customs etc to someone who is studying them 〔为研究者提供语言、风俗等资料的〕资料提供人

Examples 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.

Chinese

Syllable

Corpus

BNC: 9022 COCA: 7105

informant

People who tell secrets: informant, informer, mole...