the.com/informant
the only job where snitching gets you a paycheck and a witness protection condo
means A person who supplies information, especially someone who secretly gives authorities details about others' wrongdoing.
from From Latin informare, 'to shape, form, instruct,' which gave English 'inform' — literally to put form or knowledge into someone's mind. 'Informant' is the one who does the informing, with the agent suffix '-ant' (also Latin, marking the doer). The word arrived in English by way of legal and administrative Latin, and its sense narrowed over time from any 'one who informs' to the more loaded figure of one who informs *on* others.
- slang
- rat, snitch, stool pigeon, canary, mole
- FBI files
- thousands of paid informants on the payroll
- crime origin
- often criminals trading intel for lighter sentences
- deadliest job
- betrayal is the fastest route to a grave
- old term
- a stool pigeon was a literal decoy bird
mark whitacre — fbi informant who wore a wire against archer daniels midland in the 1990s lysine price-fixing case
sammy gravano — gambino crime family underboss who testified against john gotti in 1992
rick wershe jr — detroit drug informant who worked undercover as a teenager starting in 1984