different between confidential vs informant

English

Etymology

From Latin confidentia +? -al.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?k??nf??d?n?l/

Adjective

confidential (comparative more confidential, superlative most confidential)

1. Kept, or meant to be kept, secret within a certain circle of persons; not intended to be known publicly

   Synonyms: private, classified, off the record, privileged, secret, dern (obsolete)

   Antonyms: public, on the record

   • 1872, George Eliot, Middlemarch, Edinburgh: William Blackwood, Book 6, Chapter 61, p. 355,^[1]

     […] I have a communication of a very private—indeed, I will say, of a sacredly confidential nature, which I desire to make to you.

   • 1960, Muriel Spark, The Bachelors, Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1961, Chapter 10, p. 163,^[2]

     It would tell against your reputation, losing a confidential document, wouldn’t it? Why didn’t you keep it confidential if it was confidential?

2. (dated) Inclined to share confidences; (of things) making people inclined to share confidences; involving the sharing of confidences.
   • 1814, Jane Austen, Mansfield Park, Volume 3, Chapter 16, p. 310,^[3]

     Long, long would it be ere Miss Crawford’s name passed his lips again, or she could hope for a renewal of such confidential intercourse as had been.

   • 1851, Herman Melville, Moby-Dick, New York: Harper Brothers, Chapter 11, p. 60,^[4]

     I was only alive to the condensed confidential comfortableness of sharing a pipe and a blanket with a real friend.

   • 1905, Edith Wharton, The House of Mirth, New York: Scribner, Book 2, Chapter 2, p. 329,^[5]

     She and Bertha had never been on confidential terms, but at such a crisis the barriers of reserve must surely fall:

   • 1923, Arnold Bennett, Riceyman Steps, London: Cassell, Part 5, Chapter 2, p. 241,^[6]

     Miss Raste was encouraged to be entirely confidential, to withhold nothing even about herself, by the confidence-inspiring and kindly aspect of Elsie’s face.

3. (dated) Having someone's confidence or trust; having a position requiring trust; worthy of being trusted with confidences.
   • 1819, Walter Scott, The Bride of Lammermoor, Edinburgh: Archibald Constable, Chapter 8, p. 168,^[7]

     Now, they want me to send up a confidential person with some writings.

   • 1848, Anne Brontë, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, London: T.C. Newby, Volume 1, Chapter 18, pp. 320-321,^[8]

     This paper will serve instead of a confidential friend into whose ear I might pour forth the overflowings of my heart.

   • 1859, Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities, London: Chapman and Hall, Chapter 3, p. 11,^[9]

     […] perhaps the confidential bachelor clerks in Tellson’s Bank were principally occupied with the cares of other people;

   • 1924, Ford Madox Ford, Some Do Not ..., London: Duckworth, Part 2, Chapter 2, p. 245,^[10]

     I repeated the instruction by letter and I kept a copy of the letter witnessed by my confidential maid.

   • 1959, Kurt Vonnegut, The Sirens of Titan, New York: Dial, 2006, Chapter 6, p. 155,^[11]

     “He said he was a confidential messenger,” shouted a man.

Derived terms

• confidentiality
• confidentially

Related terms

• confide
• confidence

Translations

English

Etymology

inform +? -ant

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /?n?f??m?nt/
• (US) IPA^(key): /?n?f??m?nt/

Noun

informant (plural informants)

1. One who relays confidential information to someone, especially to the police; an informer.
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

See also

• name names

Catalan

Verb

informant

1. present participle of informar

Dutch

Etymology

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

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /??n.f?r?m?nt/
• Hyphenation: in?for?mant
• Rhymes: -?nt

Noun

informant m (plural informanten, diminutive informantje n)

1. informer, informant

French

Verb

informant

1. present participle of informer

Latin

Verb

?nf?rmant

1. third-person plural present active indicative of ?nf?rm?