Free TranslationFree Translation
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Informer   /ɪnfˈɔrmər/   Listen
Informer

noun
1.
One who reveals confidential information in return for money.  Synonyms: betrayer, blabber, rat, squealer.



Related search:



WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Informer" Quotes from Famous Books



... learn from Governor King (who has just called on me) that four citizens of this city who had gone to Chepachet to ascertain what was going on there were arrested as spies by the insurgents, bound, and sent last night to Woonsocket, where they were confined when his informer left there at 8 o'clock this morning; also that martial law had been proclaimed by the insurgents at Woonsocket and Chepachet, and no one was allowed to enter or depart from either place ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Tyler - Section 2 (of 3) of Volume 4: John Tyler • Compiled by James D. Richardson

... Acadians from trading with the French, Lawrence issued a proclamation forbidding the exportation of corn from the province, imposing a penalty of fifty pounds for each offence, half of such sum to be paid to the informer. The exact purpose of the proclamation was explained in a circular. First, it was to prevent 'the supplying of corn to the Indians and their abettors, who, residing on the north side of the Bay of Fundy, do commit hostilities upon ...
— The Acadian Exiles - A Chronicle of the Land of Evangeline • Arthur G. Doughty

... the son of a marquis who had been forced to write for bread. Deleschuze was an ex-convict. Blanqui had spent two thirds of his life in prison, having been engaged from his youth up in conspiracy. He was also at one period a Government spy. Raoul Rigault also had been a spy and an informer from his boyhood. Megy and Assy were under sentence for murder. Jourde was a medical student, one of the best men in the Commune, and faithful to his trust as its finance minister. Flourens, the scientist, a genuine enthusiast, we have seen was killed in the first skirmish with the Versaillais. ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer

... both a beggar and a knave. This is the modern informer, "a necessarie office," says Lord Coke, "but rarely filled ...
— Notes and Queries, No. 181, April 16, 1853 • Various

... his case is really righteous.' There is no yesterday for the indolent man, there is no friend for the man who is deaf to [the words of] truth, and there is no day of rejoicing for the avaricious man. The informer becometh a poor man, and the poor man becometh a beggar, and the unfriendly man becometh a dead person. Observe now, I have laid my complaint before thee, but thou wilt not hearken unto it; I shall now depart, and make my ...
— The Literature of the Ancient Egyptians • E. A. Wallis Budge

... this suspicion was either some unguarded expressions that escaped her in public, or some talk overheard in her salon. Overheard, we must believe, by some guest, perhaps a friend, who hastened to play the informer, I suppose. At any rate, the overheard matter seemed to imply her foreknowledge of that event, and I think she was wise in not waiting for the investigation of such a charge. Some of my readers may remember a little ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad

... nature of this mystery? Of what was it that he was afraid? Who was this young man who, after his departure, had taken so much interest in his niece and myself at Charing Cross? Was it some one whom he had desired to evade?—a detective, perhaps, or an informer? The riddle was not easy to solve. Common-sense told me that my wisest course was to fulfil my original intention, and take the first train on the morrow to my brother's house in Norfolk. On the other ...
— The Lost Ambassador - The Search For The Missing Delora • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... fled to Philip, who took him into service as a sort of secretary. Being persuaded to return again to his former employment, this Indian accused Philip anew of being engaged in a secret hostile plot. In accordance with Indian ideas, the treacherous informer was waylaid and killed. Three of Philip's men, suspected of having killed him, were arrested by the Plymouth authorities, and, in accordance with English ideas, were tried for murder by a jury half English, half Indians, convicted upon very slender evidence, and hanged. Philip retaliated by plundering ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson

... dank and dripping, and smelling of mould and ages of imprisoned night —a chill, uncanny journey and a long one, and not made the shorter or the cheerier by the sorceress's talk, which was about this sufferer and his crime. He had been accused by an anonymous informer, of having killed a stag in the royal ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... "I cannot identify him, though I have questioned those who should know and who are safe. I should know his name, but I cannot recall it or place him. But I know his occupation. He is a professional informer in the employ of the palace secret service, an ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White

... I had acted in this affair did not operate in my favour with the greater part of my fellow-convicts,—for, notwithstanding all our caution, a strong suspicion prevailed amongst them that I was the informer,—it secured me the marked favour of all others on board the ship, and procured me many little indulgences which would not otherwise have been permitted, and, generally, much milder treatment than was extended ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, XXII • various

... sign of greed or avarice in the informer's wily countenance. To his surprise, he saw none. Instead, Yada assumed an almost sanctimonious air. He seemed to consider ...
— The Orange-Yellow Diamond • J. S. Fletcher

... afterwards converted into the present five per cent stock. I had the curiosity very lately to inquire what price it bore in the market, and I was told that the price had somewhat risen from confidence in the new Government, and was actually as high as seventeen. I really at first supposed that my informer meant seventeen years' purchase for every pound of interest, and I began to be almost jealous of revolutionary credit; but I soon found that he literally meant seventeen pounds for every hundred pounds capital stock of five per cent, that is, a little more than three and a half years' purchase. ...
— Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 • Edgar Jones

... in this affray he was struck on the head with a sword and so badly injured that he afterward became insane. After this the feeling of the people toward the soldiers was more bitter than ever. In February, 1770, there was much disturbance. Toward the end of the month an informer named Richardson fired from his window into a crowd and killed a little boy about eleven years of age, named Christopher Snyder. The funeral of this poor boy, the first victim of the Revolution, was attended on Monday, the 26th, ...
— The War of Independence • John Fiske

... occasion. The third man stood apart and appeared from his gesticulations to be speaking rapidly. He wore his own sandy hair, and every line of his mean freckled face told of excitement and fear. Him also Lovel recognised—Carstairs, a Scotch informer who had once made a handsome living through spying on conventicles, but had now fallen into poverty owing to conducting an affair of Buckingham's with a brutality which that fastidious nobleman had not bargained for.... Lovel rubbed his eyes and looked again. He knew ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan

... thy mule of patience; I am a Roman. What are my crimes? proclaim them. Am I too rich, too honest for the times? Have I or treasure, jewels, land, or houses That some informer gapes for? is my strength Too much to be admitted, or my knowledge? These now ...
— Sejanus: His Fall • Ben Jonson

... is supposed to have turned informer, and upon his information several of these persons were taken into custody. After previous examination, on the 25th of July 1441, Bolingbroke was placed upon a scaffold before the cross of St Paul's, with a chair ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various

... Jacob's tent instead of Bilhah's couch.[312] Reuben's brothers learned of his disrespectful act from Asher. He had found it out in one way or another, and had told it to his brethren, who ruptured their relations with him, for they would have nothing to do with an informer, and they did not become reconciled with Asher until Reuben himself confessed his transgression.[313] For it was not long before Reuben recognized that he had acted reprehensibly toward his father, ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg

... lecher. Jaffier, without even the profession of any public principle, joins in the conspiracy, because he has been accustomed to luxury and prodigal expence and is poor. He has however no sooner entered into the plot, than he betrays it, and turns informer to the government against his associates. Belvidera instigates him to this treachery, because she cannot bear the thought of having her father murdered, and is absurd enough to imagine that she and her husband shall be tender and happy ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin

... with groves, or rather tufts of trees, and divided by green fences, in which were pear and apple-trees in full bearing. The fields near the town had paths around them and across them, where the towns-folk, as I understood from my informer, were accustomed to walk in the evening and which, the corn being ripe and high, were pleasantly recluse. Felice and myself crossed three or four of them, and if I may judge from the little scrupulosity with which she ran amongst ...
— Travels through the South of France and the Interior of Provinces of Provence and Languedoc in the Years 1807 and 1808 • Lt-Col. Pinkney

... of the San Francisco "Daily Informer" was going home. So much of his time was spent in the office of the "Informer" that no one ever cared to know where he passed those six hours of sleep which presumably suggested a domicile. His business appointments outside the office were generally kept at the restaurant ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte

... laws—one in particular was a penal statute passed in the reign of William III. against the Catholics ordaining forfeiture of inheritance against those Catholics who had been educated abroad.' At the pleasure of any informer, it confiscated their estates to the next Protestant heir; that statute further deprived Papists of the power of obtaining any legal property by purchase; and, simply for officiating in the service of his religion, any Catholic priest ...
— Richard Lovell Edgeworth - A Selection From His Memoir • Richard Lovell Edgeworth

... annihilated all church-dignitaries, and exposed every parochial minister to the malice of any informer who should report him for his loyalty, passed in the year 1643, and was justified by complaints of the supposed scandalous lives of the episcopal clergy. Doubtless, in a numerous body, some might be found guilty of gross vices, secular in their pursuits, negligent ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West

... two thousand peasants who believed that this wounded man was Baron d'Escorval, there was not one who turned informer or ...
— The Honor of the Name • Emile Gaboriau

... them he had found that satisfaction which he could not obtain elsewhere. When in Rome about A.D. 165, he came into collision with Crescens, a Cynic philosopher, whom he foiled in a theological discussion. His unscrupulous antagonist, annoyed by this discomfiture, turned informer; and Justin, with some others, was put to death. Shortly afterwards Polycarp, the aged pastor of Smyrna, was committed to the flames. [293:2] This venerable man, who had been acquainted in his youth with the Apostle John, had long occupied a high position as a prudent, exemplary, ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen

... if I ever found out who the informer was I would serve him worse than that," said Bristow in savage tones. "I shall keep my promise, too, if I ever get the chance, for I am one ...
— George at the Fort - Life Among the Soldiers • Harry Castlemon

... a courier unless he has a proper warrant, and that then he shall only claim a free lodging; that clerks in the villages shall keep a register of all that is taken on account of the public service; and that if anybody make an unjust claim he shall pay four times the amount to the informer and six times the amount to the emperor. But royal decrees could do little or nothing where there were no judges to enforce them; and the people of Upper Egypt must have felt this law as a cruel insult when they were told that they might take up their complaints to Basilides, at Alexandria. ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 11 (of 12) • S. Rappoport

... given as a tradition of the time when George III. was king. Its tenor is, that a bill which proposed, as the punishment of an offence, to levy a certain pecuniary penalty, one half thereof to go to his Majesty and the other half to the informer, was altered in committee, in so far that, when it appeared in the form of an act, the punishment was changed to whipping and imprisonment, the ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton

... my informer with an air of great gravity, "if you can give the evil spirit a present in the shape of a living being that will satisfy him, he will depart quite happy." If the illness is slight, it means that the spirit is not much out of temper, and a small present is enough ...
— In the Forbidden Land • Arnold Henry Savage Landor

... her; and I concluded their interview had been in all honour, and that she would at her own time tell it to your lordship. Your lordship knows with what unwilling ears we listen to evil surmises against those whom we love; and I thank Heaven I am no makebate or informer, to be the first to ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott

... sick, Abner Sawyer formally thanked his informer and rang off. Glancing out of his office window he saw with a shock that instead of Austin White, who usually drove him home at night, Jimsy and Peggy, the old Sawyer mare, were waiting beneath a snow-ridged elm with the sleigh. Jimsy caught his eye, smiled ...
— Jimsy - The Christmas Kid • Leona Dalrymple

... me the name of your informer;" and so great was her agitation that she scarcely breathed ...
— The Gold Bag • Carolyn Wells

... by paying too much rent For compound sweet; forgoing simple savour, Pitiful thrivers, in their gazing spent? No; let me be obsequious in thy heart, And take thou my oblation, poor but free, Which is not mix'd with seconds, knows no art, But mutual render, only me for thee. Hence, thou suborned informer! a true soul When most impeach'd, stands least in ...
— Shakespeare's Sonnets • William Shakespeare

... quailing under the honest but sharp look of the hunter; the informer gets half, II believeyes, I guess its half. But theres blood on your sleeve, manyou havent ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper

... his finger at me, and so carried away by passion, so lifted out of himself by wrath and indignation, that I shrank before him—'you talk, lady, of contempt and abhorrence in the same breath with me, but what have you for him—what have you for him—the spy, the informer, the hired traitor? And if you doubt me, if you want evidence, look at him. Only look at ...
— Under the Red Robe • Stanley Weyman

... on either side of it. For this, Pheidias was imprisoned, and there fell sick and died, though some say that his enemies poisoned him in order to cast suspicion upon Perikles. At the instance of Glykon, the people voted to Menon, the informer, an immunity from public burdens, and ordered the generals of the State to provide for the ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch

... Who had turned informer on my uncle? Was I not the only royalist in the house? Would suspicion fall on me? But questions were put to flight by a thunderous rapping on the door. It gave as it had been cardboard, and in tumbled ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut

... answered, with such a sense of relief as he told it that he felt almost glad. "An' I know he would forgive you for murderin' him, Pat, this very minute, if he could spake." Pat did not answer. "An' if ye don't go they'll make me give evidence, an' ye wouldn't have me an informer, would ye?" ...
— The Weans at Rowallan • Kathleen Fitzpatrick

... the Sultan's palace, said, "I have an advisement for the King." So he bade admit him and he delivered him the writ he had forged, saying, "I found this letter with the woman, the devotee, the ascetic, and indeed she is a spy, a secret informer against the sovran to his foe; and I deem the King's due more incumbent on me than any other claim and warning him to be the first duty, for that he uniteth in himself all the subjects, and but for the King's existence, the lieges would perish; ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton

... buryed April 5, in Linnen, and the forfeiture of the Act payd fifty shillings to ye informer and fifty shillings to ye ...
— English Villages • P. H. Ditchfield

... have turned informer, in his own interest—he was in a devilish difficult position—and men would be sent with our descriptions to the post-houses. 'Tis merely possible. Or our hackney-coachman may have guessed something, and dogged me to the Strand, and informed. If they found where we started, of course they could ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens

... objected to transubstantiation German finds himself sober—he believes himself ill Govern under the appearance of obeying Informer, in case of conviction, should be entitled to one half Man had only natural wrongs (No natural rights) No calumny was too senseless to be invented Ruinous honors Sovereignty was heaven-born, anointed of God That vile and ...
— Quotations From John Lothrop Motley • David Widger

... for his acts. It is undoubtedly liable to abuse, and at some periods of our history perhaps has been abused. If it be thought desirable and constitutional that it should be so limited as to make the President merely a common informer against other public agents, he should at least be permitted to act in that capacity before some open tribunal, independent of party politics, ready to investigate the merits of every case, furnished with the means of taking evidence, and bound ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 6: Andrew Johnson • James D. Richardson

... preparations were secret, how could the Social Democrats know of these proceedings? The answer is direct and simple: Every individual Social Democrat—and men, women, and children, they number some twenty millions—has for years past been a spy and informer in the interests of the Umsturzpartei (overthrow-party). All the happenings of the workshop, barracks, farmyard, shop and office have been systematically reported to the local Press, and local committees of the Democratic Party; the ammunitions thus obtained have been just ...
— What Germany Thinks - The War as Germans see it • Thomas F. A. Smith

... it, and if I thought any miscreant here would become an informer, I'd make an example of him. Well, Barny, on Friday next: but I suppose Ned has a drop ...
— The Station; The Party Fight And Funeral; The Lough Derg Pilgrim • William Carleton

... saying, they appeared contradictions, because he had some ideas of sound which did not at all aid him in forming those of colour; he would not, perhaps, be very inconclusive if he suspected the competency of his informer to the definition attempted, from his inability to convey to him in any distinct, understood terms, his own ideas of colours. The theologian is a blind man, who would explain to others who are also blind, the shades and colours of a portrait whose original ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 2 • Baron D'Holbach

... employers; an escaped criminal and a desperate one, at that. What was my duty in the premises? Should I bind myself, once for all, to the brotherhood of law-breakers—the submerged minority—by shielding this man and conniving at his escape? Or should I turn informer, telling the contractor-partners of the risk they ran by keeping Dorgan in the force—the risk that some night, after the money for the monthly pay-roll had been brought out from town, they would find the camp safe smashed ...
— Branded • Francis Lynde

... achieved—'Consuelo possessed to perfection this and the other gift'—what would you more? Or, to leave dear George Sand, pray think of Bulwer's beginning a 'character' by informing you that lone, or somebody in 'Pompeii,' 'was endowed with perfect genius'—'genius'! What though the obliging informer might write his fingers off before he gave the pitifullest proof that the poorest spark of that same, that genius, had ever visited him? Ione has it 'perfectly'—perfectly—and that is enough! Zeus with the scales? with ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett

... own personal dignity, to protect the very men whom you wish him to discard." After a hard fight of two days, and several divisions, the address was carried by a hundred and ninety five votes to a hundred and forty six, [526] The King, as might have been foreseen, coldly refused to turn informer; and the House did not press him further, [527] To another address, which requested that a Commission might be sent to examine into the state of things in Ireland, William returned a very gracious answer, and desired the Commons to name the Commissioners. ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... brother "would speake plaine English to him" about his licentious conduct and other matters, as we have already read. When a friend or a relative tells a man that he is behaving scandalously, the recipient of the information is apt to say that his informer is "cracked." ...
— The Curious Case of Lady Purbeck - A Scandal of the XVIIth Century • Thomas Longueville

... written (Lev. 19:16): "Thou shalt not be an informer [Douay: 'a detractor'] nor a tale-bearer [Douay: 'whisperer'] among the people." But an informer is apparently the same as a backbiter. Therefore neither does tale-bearing differ ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas

... your Lpp maye see howe much Th' informer hath exceeded therein, himselfe or any man els shall purchase my interest for a tenth parte of his valuation. Which I write not in any sorte to capitulate with your Lpp; for wthout any consideration at all, I am redie to yealde ...
— The Forest of Dean - An Historical and Descriptive Account • H. G. Nicholls

... you mean, but bitterly shall you repent your insolence, you prying rascal! This is your sweet revenge for a blow you had not the courage to return!—to dog me and get hold of my affairs! You cur! You're going to turn informer next, of course, and bear false witness against your neighbour! You shall repent ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald

... avowed purpose of preserving Romans from defamation, made libel subject to the penalties of treason. Thenceforward every man's life hung by a thread easily severed by some lying informer. ...
— In the Days of Poor Richard • Irving Bacheller

... all men were interested in the preservation of law, so all men might exert the privilege of the plaintiff and accuser. As society grew more complicated, the door was thus opened to every species of vexatious charge and frivolous litigation. The common informer became a most harassing and powerful personage, and made one of a fruitful and crowded profession; and in the very capital of liberty there existed the worst species of espionage. But justice was not thereby facilitated. The informer was regarded with universal hatred and contempt; and it is ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... city of Orchomenus, which is next to that of Chaeronea, was at variance with it, and hired a Roman informer, who indicted the city for the murder of those persons killed by Damon, just as if it were a man. The trial was appointed to take place before the praetor of Macedonia, for at that time the Romans did not ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long

... foreigners. The provincial had held a consult of the Jesuits under his authority; where the king, whom they opprobriously called the Black Bastard, was solemnly tried and condemned as a heretic, and a resolution taken to put him to death. Father Le Shee (for so this great plotter and informer called Father La Chaise, the noted confessor of the French king) had consigned in London ten thousand pounds, to be paid to any man who should merit it by this assassination. A Spanish provincial ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part F. - From Charles II. to James II. • David Hume

... Allen, "they only obeyed orders. I shall let them go this time, if they will tell me the name of the informer." ...
— The Hero of Ticonderoga - or Ethan Allen and his Green Mountain Boys • John de Morgan

... desperation, drunkenness, starvation, suicide, because no one would take the trouble of lifting them up, and enabling them to walk in the path which Nature had marked out for them? Dead men tell no tales; and this old whited sepulchre, society, ain't going to turn informer against itself." ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al

... arrested or banished; the one hundred and forty-two who escaped voted "aye." What we say of the Loiret and the Yonne might be said of all the departments. Since the 2nd of December, each town has its swarm of spies; each village, each hamlet, its informer. To vote "no" was imprisonment, transportation, Lambessa. In the villages of one department, we were told by an eye-witness, they brought "ass-loads of 'aye' ballots." The mayors, flanked by gardes-champetres, distributed them among the peasants. They had ...
— Napoleon the Little • Victor Hugo

... had once more resumed his restless walk up and down the room. He was biting his fists, trying to restrain himself from striking the noble informer as brutally as he did his slaves, for he loathed the bearer of evil tidings almost as much as the secret traitors. He suffered from an overwhelming fury of hatred and from ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy

... must be guilty of a most heinous crime. That was his code: To let every fellow have a chance to work out his own salvation or damnation as he might choose. I don't suppose there was anything he hated worse than an informer. ...
— The Ranch at the Wolverine • B. M. Bower

... wherein to enter all burials and affidavits of persons being buried in woolen; the affidavit to be taken by any justice of the peace, mayor, or such like chief officer in the parish where the body was interred.... It imposed a fine of five pounds for every infringement, one half to go to the informer, and the other half to the poor of the parish. This Act was only repealed by 54 Geo. III. c. 108, or in the year 1815. The material used was flannel, and such interments are frequently mentioned in the literature ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins

... can be no more consolidation, no more copper boom in your lifetime and mine, and when the collapse comes every one will look for the victim, and that victim will be you. Even your best friend will say if you were going to turn informer you should have been smart enough to have discovered your mare's nest before you let it grow so big. Look at it, Lawson, look at it, and in the name of everything that is reasonable get ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson

... conventions which force them sometimes to give judgment against the testimony of their own conscience, still tremble as they pronounce the doom of the accused. And since when has it been lawful for the same person to be at once judge and informer?"[14] ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists (Vol 1 of 2) • John Morley

... of a Turkish sect, once received a blow in the face from a ruffian, and rebuked him in these terms, not unworthy of Christian imitation: "If I were vindictive, I should return you outrage for outrage; if I were an informer, I should accuse you before the caliph: but I prefer putting up a prayer to God, that in the day of judgment he will cause me to enter paradise ...
— The Book of Three Hundred Anecdotes - Historical, Literary, and Humorous—A New Selection • Various

... by Boethius, who was his colleague in some office, 'a wretched buffoon and informer' (nequissimus scurra et delator. Cons. Phil. iii. 4). But Ennodius addresses him in friendly and cordial language (Epist. iv. 17). His epitaph, which mentions his Spoletan origin, is ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)

... bring no way out of her entanglement. It was something, however, to have even a respite of two weeks; it gave her time to think and to lay plans. She wondered what Netta would do if, as seemed most likely, the debt still remained owing. She did not suppose Netta would turn informer to Miss Roscoe, but she might very possibly mention the matter to Winnie, who would tell Beatrice, who would ...
— The Youngest Girl in the Fifth - A School Story • Angela Brazil

... red-bearded reverend who had lent so sympathetic an ear to the tale of his life in Poland, his journey hither; so sympathetic an eye to his commentary on the great Maimonides' Guide of the Perplexed. The vile spy, the base informer! He had told the zealots of the town of the new-comer's heretical mode of thinking. They had shut him out, as ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... what came some years afterward. O'Brien's name was implicated in the blowing up of the World-Republican Building in Washington, and the wrecking of Senator Marlowe's special train after his speech against socialist interests, but the coward turned informer against his friends and associates in the secret society of which he had been a leader, and saved himself by sending them to prison. From that day until his death he lived the life of a hunted animal flying from the hounds of vengeance. Brigit stood by him in spite of threats ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson

... rebellion with hurleysticks, said Stephen, and want the indispensable informer, tell me. I can find you ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce

... Oates," said the page. "He was a Papist once, and is turned informer, he says. He still feigns secretly to be friends with one or two of the ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson

... giving you a hint; but the sooner the better, that's all. Others may be beforehand with you, and first come first served on these occasions, that's all. Informers are odious, there's no doubt of that, and no one would care to be an informer if he could help it, because of the ill-usage they always receive from the mob: yet it is dangerous to trust too much; and when safety and a good part of the reward too are on one side and the gallows on the other—I know which a ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding

... by the Emperor Domitian. Trajan protected their meetings by requiring definite evidence of these illegal assemblies, and an informer who failed in his proofs was subject to a severe or capital penalty. But the edicts of Hadrian and Antoninus Pius protected the Church from the danger of popular clamour in times of disaster, declaring that the voice of the multitude ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XI. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton

... premature report of his son's election, on Sunday afternoon, without any excitement, and told the reporter he had been hoaxed, for it was not yet time for any news to arrive. The informer, something damped in his heart, insisted on repairing to the meeting-house, and proclaimed it aloud to the congregation, who were so overjoyed that they rose in their seats and cheered thrice. The Reverend ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various

... pale, dressed himself without uttering a word, and followed the slave to the door of Vaninka's room. Having arrived there, with a motion of his hand he dismissed the informer, who, instead of retiring in obedience to this mute command, hid himself in the ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - VANINKA • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

... to secure the greatest number of arrests by a direct appeal to the most ignoble, but not the least powerful principle of human nature, it was ordained "that the informer, in case of conviction, should be entitled to one half the property of the accused, if not more than one hundred pounds Flemish; if more, then ten per cent. of ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... the cellar, the bringing in of the powder, etcetera, except that he refrained from implicating any one but himself. There was, at first, a certain air of nobility about Fawkes, and he sternly refused to become an informer. He declined to admit his summer journey abroad, and would not allow that the spring excursion had any other object than "to see the country and pass away ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt

... this government's Secret Service, has just returned to the United Americas! Your informer has just seen him step from the monoplane of Carlos Kane, atop the Capitol Building, and repair at once to the Secret Room, closely guarded. But I saw his face, and though he is under forty, he seems ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science April 1930 • Various

... the man for the place, and that the sooner you sell out—if you only get a dime a dollar for what the business is worth—the better it will be for you. What you have said is safe with me; but, by Gar! if I thought you were an informer—" ...
— The Valley of Fear • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

... sneak, a spy, an informer. He has been attempting to curry favour and reinstate himself in the good graces of the captain by carrying tales of the men forward. He it was, I know, that carried some of Johnson's hasty talk to Wolf Larsen. Johnson, it seems, bought a suit of oilskins from the ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London

... commonwealth is so far away from your Majesty, it has to be governed, not by what your Majesty sees and knows, but by the information received by him regarding it. This must be according to the good or bad intention of the informer. Consequently, this commonwealth is subjected to many hardships and misfortunes, by the fault not of your Majesty—with whose most holy zeal and desire for the welfare of this land we are well acquainted—but of us here ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, V7, 1588-1591 • Emma Helen Blair

... grim smile Shir Jumla Khan listened to this narrative. But he made no comment; he merely issued instructions for the informer to be fed and for the present ...
— Tales of Destiny • Edmund Mitchell

... order to obtain their share of the penalty, or, perhaps, in some cases to satisfy a personal spleen. The mob hated the common informers as bitterly as a well-dressed crowd at a race-course in our own time hates a "welsher." When the informer was got hold of by his enemies he was usually treated very much after the fashion in which ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4) • Justin McCarthy

... neighbouring hill; having there dismounted, and taken off their fur mantles, they advanced naked to the charge. The only weapon of an Indian is a very long bamboo or chuzo, ornamented with ostrich feathers, and pointed by a sharp spear-head. My informer seemed to remember with the greatest horror the quivering of these chuzos as they approached near. When close, the cacique Pincheira hailed the besieged to give up their arms, or he would cut all their throats. As this would probably have been the result ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin

... the English do not detain a man on bare suspicions, and but shabbily reward an informer. On the other hand, twenty colonati are yours, if you do my bidding. I do not want an answer—you are not a fool. Now row on shore as ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston

... trust, without offence; Let no court sycophant pervert my sense, Nor sly informer watch these words to draw Within the reach of ...
— The Poetical Works Of Alexander Pope, Vol. 1 • Alexander Pope et al

... Janitors, and Crier of the place. He has a Stentorian voice, which is a part of his business to exercise in calling the prisoners. I know but little of him, and even that is not worth knowing. He, however, has the character of being an informer, and I am not aware that he is in possession of any good qualities. I shall, therefore, rather give a slight sketch of the office he ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan

... Directory the papers which unfolded a plot against the Government, and which the chances of war had thrown into his hands. He fulfilled his duty as a man of honour by not voluntarily incurring the infamy which can never be wiped from the character of an informer. Bonaparte in Moreau's situation would have acted the same part, for I never knew a man express stronger indignation than himself against informers, until he began to consider everything a virtue which served his ambition, ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... uncommon children, and it was cruel of the minister Gulmore to conspire against you. It was infamous in him, they now say, to have your letters 'burked' in the post office, as it appears from Amanda, who has turned informer on the parson, because he did not marry her after his first wife's death. Before this ye were paupers, Irish, and Papists; now, you and your sister and brothers are ...
— The Cross and the Shamrock • Hugh Quigley

... whose prospects had once been fair enough, as his features had been prepossessing, became soured and malevolent, embittered against the world, and at war with society. He turned promoter, or, in modern parlance, informer; lodging complaints, seeking out causes for prosecutions, and bringing people into trouble in order to obtain part of the forfeits they incurred for his pains. Strange to say, he attached himself to Sir Giles Mompesson,—the ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth

... behind him; what grounds had you for your conjecture that it related to the MSS. in eight vols., rather than to any other MSS. of which there was a transcript? I beg that you will be very plain, and tell me what strangers were named to you; and why you said the Bishop of London, if your informer said stranger to you. I am so much concerned in this, that I must repeat it, if you have the singular respect for Mr. Collins which you profess, that you would help me to trace out this reproach, which is so ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... Double and treble fool! and dost thou call this nothing? Nothing to tell the loitering informer the very head and heart of our design? By Erebus! but I am sick—sick of the fools, with whom I am thus wretchedly assorted! Well! well! upon your own heads be it!" and instantly recovering his temper ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert

... premiere lettre, et me laisse a peine celui de repondre en peu de mots a la seconde. Pour m'en tenir a ce qui presse pour le moment, savoir la recommendation que vous desirez en Corse; puisque vous avez le desir de visiter ces braves insulaires, vous pourrez vous informer a Bastia, de M. Buttafoco capitaine au Regiment Royal Italien; il a sa maison a Vescovado, ou il se tient assez souvent. C'est un tres galant homme, qui a des connoissances et de l'esprit; il suffira de lui montrer cette lettre, et je suis sur qu'il ...
— Boswell's Correspondence with the Honourable Andrew Erskine, and His Journal of a Tour to Corsica • James Boswell

... wept the queen of Pluto, but she chang'd "The vile informer to an hideous shape: "Sprinkled with streams of Phlegethon, his head "Feather'd appears, with beak, and monstrous eyes; "Spoil'd of his shape, with yellow feathers cloth'd: "Large grows his head; bent are his lengthen'd nails; "Scarcely he moves the pinions which are shot "Light from ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid

... carry some soup to him—stealthily, however, so as not to be observed. As he was always ready to give, and hated every harsh measure, it was to his wood that the unscrupulous went in winter, when they wanted fuel. Sometimes an informer would say to him: 'M—— So-and-so is cutting down your wood.' 'Oh, bast! le pauvre. It is cold weather!' was the reply that he would be most likely to make. His good qualities would have ruined ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker

... say that the warrant was made at your instruction, Roma—that you were the informer who denounced me. It cannot be true. Tell ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine

... late. In her fortune he has all that he wanted. He swears at her, treats her brutally, brings prostitutes into his house, laughs at her religion, and at length orders her to give it up. When she refuses, Bunyan introduces a special feature of the times, and makes Badman threaten to turn informer, and bring her favourite minister to gaol. The informers were the natural but most accursed products of the Conventicle Acts. Popular abhorrence relieved itself by legends of the dreadful judgments which had overtaken ...
— Bunyan • James Anthony Froude

... against us. The council met this by a question:—'Is the information, in any particular, false?' Neither of us could deny that it was, in every particular, true. Hearing this, the council decided that there was no need, on our own showing, to confront us with the informer. From that day to this, I have never known who the spy was. Neither Mellicent nor I had an enemy in the Community. The girls who had seen us on the lake, and some other members who had met us together, only gave their evidence on compulsion—and ...
— The Fallen Leaves • Wilkie Collins

... with the Frenchman, by some of their own associates; while a respectable and benevolent looking man addressed me, "I am a Protestant, sir, and an Orangeman; but put these ladies under my protection, and you will not repent your confidence; for, next to the Pope, I love to defeat an informer;" and he pointed with a smile to our arrester, who was just measuring his ...
— Tales from Blackwood, Volume 7 • Various

... the subject was deserving of such notice, to the acknowledged head and constituted authorities of that state, instead of holding official correspondence with a citizen of a foreign jurisdiction, and employing a secret agent and informer, whose very offer of such service was proof of the base and irresponsible character ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... out by the English surveyor, which would go clear through the main enclosures at Hazlewood, and cut within a mile, or nearly so, of the house itself, destroying the privacy and pleasure, as his informer contended, of the grounds. ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott

... thundering threatenings doth attempt to lay hold on thy conscience, shut it out with a promise of grace; cry, the inn is took up already, the Lord Jesus is here entertained, and here is no room for the law. Indeed if it will be content with being my informer, and so lovingly leave off to judge me; I will be content, it shall be in my sight, I will also delight therein; but otherwise, I being now made upright without it, and that too with that righteousness, which this law speaks well of and ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... his country. And whether the defamers of them are arrayed in robes of scarlet or sable, whether they lurk and skulk in an insurance office, whether they assume the venerable character of a priest, the sly one of a scrivener, or the dirty, infamous, abandoned one of an informer, they are all the creatures and tools of the ...
— A Collection of State-Papers, Relative to the First Acknowledgment of the Sovereignty of the United States of America • John Adams

... the company set off with their prisoners under guard. There was a strong detachment as escort, and in addition to the men's rifles, a couple of machine guns were taken along, as the lieutenant was taking no chances. He had learned enough from the perusal of the papers and the testimony of the informer to believe that serious trouble was brewing, and he was anxious above all that the prisoners should ...
— Army Boys on German Soil • Homer Randall

... to find where the rajah had hidden; but beyond that distance they were met with stern looks of distrust, and it was evident to the officers in charge that the rajah was perfectly safe, his influence being too great amongst the people for any one to act as informer. ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn

... no fear." Without more ado I whistled up the Swiss and bade Maignan go with them and arrest the man and woman with as little disturbance as possible. While this was being done we waited without, keeping a sharp eye upon the informer, whose terror, I noted with suspicion, seemed to be in no degree diminished. He did not, however, try to escape, and Maignan presently came to tell us that he had executed the arrest ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various

... flow of conversation for the sake merely of giving his own views. If the man runs too far afield, the reporter may guide the conversation back to the original topic; but he may well subject himself to much irrelevant talk for the sake of guiding his informer back gracefully to ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer

... eye, either to the right or the left, lest he should endeavour to escape me. There was no fear of this, for Mr. Jonson was both a bold and a crafty man, and it required, perhaps, but little of his penetration to discover that I was no officer nor informer, and that my communication had been of a nature likely enough to terminate in his advantage; there was, therefore, but little need of his courage in accompanying me to ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... myself that if I tried to see the business out our Portygee friend would see me mixed up with it all and take the alarm. Yewr sloop wouldn't get near him, for he'd run right up the river where you couldn't follow, and he'd wait his time till you'd gone away, and then come down upon me as an informer. D'you know what that would mean for ...
— Hunting the Skipper - The Cruise of the "Seafowl" Sloop • George Manville Fenn

... the Negro"—a stretch of magnanimity to which the laws of other states are strangers. A person who performs the ceremony of marriage in such a case is fined two hundred dollars, one-half of which goes to the informer. ...
— The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and - Selected Essays • Charles Waddell Chesnutt

... say that laws, ... where one of the penalties was an incapacity, which by a maxim of law cannot be taken away even by a pardon, should at the pleasure of the prince be dispensed with: A fine was also set by the Act on offenders, but not given to the King, but to the informer, which thereby became his. So that the King could no more pardon that, than he could discharge the debts of the subjects, and take ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift

... part of his duty to visit Dublin at least once a month. As a matter of precaution, there were but few who knew of any address where he might be found. At a time when Corydon had started to give information, but before "Beecher" actually knew of it, the informer gave an address of his where he thought the "Paymaster" was to be found to the Liverpool police. Major Greig, the chief constable, and a strong body of his men, surrounded the house, but the bird had flown. ...
— The Life Story of an Old Rebel • John Denvir

... religion, in other manner than according to the liturgy and practice of the Church of England, "should be liable to fines of from five to ten shillings; and any person preaching at or giving his house for the meeting, to a fine of twenty pounds: one third of the fines being received by the informer or informers." As a natural consequence of such a law, the vilest scoundrels in the land set up the trade of informers and heresy-hunters. Wherever a dissenting meeting or burial took place, there was sure to be a mercenary spy, ready to bring ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... the heads of the aristocracy with criminal impeachments on account of an alleged plot for the murder of Pompeius, and so to drive them into exile, was frustrated by the incapacity of the instruments; the informer, one Vettius, exaggerated and contradicted himself so grossly, and the tribune Vatinius, who directed the foul scheme, showed his complicity with that Vettius so clearly, that it was found advisable to strangle the latter ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... Many a mother assumed in her own person, by the force of imagination, the sinking woman's misery, and poured forth, in unavailing tears, the undeniable proofs of the sincerity with which she participated in Honor's bereavement. As for Flanagan, a deadly weight of odium, such as is peculiar to the Informer in Ireland, fell upon both him and his. Nor was this all. Aided by that sagacity which is so conspicuous in Irishmen, when a vindictive or hostile feeling is excited among them, they depicted Flanagan's character with an accuracy ...
— Fardorougha, The Miser - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... England even by lawyers to criminal proceedings. What are now known as "penal actions,'' i.e. proceedings in which an individual who has not suffered personally by a breach of the law sues as a common informer for the statutory penalty either on his own benefit or on behalf also of the Crown (qui tam pro rege quam pro se ipso), bear some analogy to the actio popularis of Roman law, from which they are derived (see the statute 4 Hen. VII. 1488); but they are now ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... disconcerted with this intelligence; her informer imagined the visible agitation of her spirits proceeded from her attachment to Mr Lenman, but in reality it was the effect of terror. She was frighted to think how near she was becoming the object of general ridicule and disgrace, wedded to a married man and duped by his ...
— A Description of Millenium Hall • Sarah Scott

... child Will say, I'm confident, They ever heard it speak one word Against the Parliament. An informer swore it letters bore, Or else it had been freed; In troth I'll take my Bible oath It could ...
— Cavalier Songs and Ballads of England from 1642 to 1684 • Charles Mackay

... Gladstone was with the Radicals, Dilke and Chamberlain, and against those who wanted to revenge upon the whole Irish nation, the plots of the "Invincibles," then being exposed by the evidence of James Carey, the Phoenix Park assassin, who had been accepted as an informer. ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn

... slowly, yet will grow, as I have been credibly informed, to be almost two feet long; for an honest informer told me, such a one was not long since taken by Sir Abraham Williams, a gentleman of worth, and a brother of the angle, that yet lives, and I wish he may: this was a deep-bodied fish, and doubtless durst have devoured a Pike of half his own ...
— The Complete Angler • Izaak Walton

... reversion. If any lease is made, exceeding either in duration or value, and in the smallest degree, the above limits, the whole interest is forfeited, and vested ipso facto in the first Protestant discoverer or informer. This discoverer, thus invested with the property, is enabled to sue for it as his own right. The courts of law are not alone open to him; he may (and this is the usual method) enter into either of the courts of equity, and call upon the parties, ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... lieu, en mon retour en mon pays. Je vous desire de remercier Messeigneurs les Senateurs de cette ville du respect qu'ils ont temoigne envers sa Serenissime Altesse mon maitre et la Republique d'Angleterre, par l'honneur qu'ils ont fait a leur serviteur, de quoi je ne manquerai d'en informer: j'avais grande envie de voir cette illustre ville, et mes compatriotes qui par accord vivent ici, desquels j'ai appris avec beaucoup de contentement que leurs privileges ici etaient maintenus par Messeigneurs les magistrats, lesquels je desire d'etre informes que ...
— A Journal of the Swedish Embassy in the Years 1653 and 1654, Vol II. • Bulstrode Whitelocke

... made to rekindle the dying flame in 1675, by fining constables who failed in their duty to break up Quaker meetings, and offering one third of the penalty to the informer. Magistrates were required to sentence those apprehended to the House of Correction, where they were to be kept three days on bread and water, and whipped. [Footnote: Mass. Rec. v. 60.] Several suffered during this revival, the last ...
— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams

... the first worthy who set up the trade of informer at Rome (to whom our Olivers and Castleses ought to erect a ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al

... Greene, in his Groat's Worth of Wit, written on his deathbed, reproaches him with his evil life and atheistic opinions, and a few days before his hapless death an information was laid against him for blasphemy. The informer was next year hanged for an outrageous offence, and his witness alone might not be conclusive, but M.'s life and opinions, which he made no secret of, were notorious. On the other hand, his friends, Shakespeare, Nash, Drayton, and Chapman, all make kindly reference to him. To ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin

... of course, what Moon meant by a 'nark.' A 'nark' is an informer, a spy among criminals who sells the police whatever information he can scrape up. Could it be possible that this man had anything to tell about Mayes? It was scarcely likely, and I made up my mind that ...
— The Red Triangle - Being Some Further Chronicles of Martin Hewitt, Investigator • Arthur Morrison

... mingled with the traffic, and there were occasional roughnesses on the high seas and about the ports and anchorages of Holland and the Isle of Man, there was never any of the cruelty associated with smuggling along the south coast of England. The smugglers of Sussex killed the informer Chater with blows of their whips. A yet darker tragedy enacted farther west, brought half-a-dozen to a well-deserved scaffold. But, save for the losses in fair fight occasioned by the intemperate zeal of some ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett

... examination of your father, Charlie, or rather, an examination of the testimony against him. First the two letters that were discovered were put in. Without having got them word for word, my informer was able to give me the substance of them. Both were unsigned, and professed to have been written in France. The first is dated three months back. It alludes to a conversation that somebody is supposed to have had with Sir Marmaduke, and states ...
— A Jacobite Exile - Being the Adventures of a Young Englishman in the Service of Charles the Twelfth of Sweden • G. A. Henty

... resolve in the matter of a Spartan citizen without indisputable proof. At last, it is said, the person who was going to carry to Artabazus the last letter for the King, a man of Argilus, once the favourite and most trusty servant of Pausanias, turned informer. Alarmed by the reflection that none of the previous messengers had ever returned, having counterfeited the seal, in order that, if he found himself mistaken in his surmises, or if Pausanias should ask to make some correction, he might ...
— The History of the Peloponnesian War • Thucydides

... provided the public faith would be given to her by him, that the discovery should not be made detrimental to her. Fabius immediately lays the matter before the consuls, and the consuls before the senate, and with the concurrence of that order the public faith was pledged to the informer. It was then disclosed that the state was afflicted by the wickedness of certain women, and that certain matrons were preparing those poisonous drugs; and if they wished to follow her forthwith, they might be detected in the very fact. Having followed ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius

... was Claudius' son-in-law, and executed by him 'on a vague charge'. M. Licinius Crassus Frugi was accused of treason to Nero by Aquilius Regulus, an informer, whom one of Pliny's friends calls 'the vilest of bipeds'. Regulus' brother was ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus

... inhuman," added Don Juan sententiously, "to raid trains, and to threaten murder as you have done in this room. Your band too was none too scrupulous in hanging Jimenez the half-breed, though he was an informer. Tell me now, why did you hold up the train? why did you try to rob ...
— A Queen's Error • Henry Curties

... the name of his tormentors. It is in this respect that he resembles a harmless fellow, dragged into the coils of an Anarchist "Inner Brotherhood." He is exposed to all sorts of wrongs from his neighbours, and he can only escape by turning "informer," by breaking the most sacred law of his society, losing all social status, and, probably, obliging his parents to remove him from school. Life at school, as among the Celtic peoples, turns on the belief that law and authority ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang

... But he did not doubt that this was the stronghold of the illicit distillers, of whom one heard so much in the Cove and saw so little. A lapse of caution, an inconsiderate movement, and he might be captured and dealt with as a spy and informer. ...
— The Moonshiners At Hoho-Hebee Falls - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)

... are set forth in the accusation of an informer, one Richard Bame, who was hanged at Tyburn the next year for some mortal offence. Marlowe's death prevented his arrest, and it is somewhat extravagant—not to give it a harsher epithet—to write as though the accusation ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (Second Series) • George W. Foote

... dragged before the tribunal of judicial inquiry. Their trial, like that of Pomeroff, was a mockery, for their fate had already been decided. Defence was useless. The incriminating papers found in the places designated by the informer Moleska sealed their doom. Governor Drentell himself pronounced their sentence. Two days afterward ...
— Rabbi and Priest - A Story • Milton Goldsmith

... his head, they will cut off mine too. No, they will only hang me—I am not noble. Hanged!—it is impossible; they would never go to such extremities in my case: besides, I will declare all. But then I shall be an informer: never! But then I ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)

... Irishman of very meane and low condition afterwards acknowledged, that beinge brought to him as an evidence of one parte of the charge against the Lord Lieuetenant in a particular of which a person of so vyle quality would not be reasonably thought a competent informer, M'r Pimm gave him mony to buy him a Sattyn Sute and Cloke, in which equipage he appeared at the tryall, and gave his evidence, which if true, may make many other thinges which were confidently reported afterwards of him, to be believed: As, that he receaved a greate Summ of mony ...
— Characters from 17th Century Histories and Chronicles • Various

... friend unheard; or without letting him know his accuser, or his crime. It is a common thing to say, "Do not tell that you had it from me; for if you do, I will deny it; and never tell you anything again." By which means friends are set together by the ears, and the informer slips his neck out of the collar. Admit no stories, upon these terms; for it is an unjust thing to believe in private, and be angry openly. He that delivers himself up to guess and conjecture, runs a great ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy

... tell you, Miss Nugent. There was a footman in the family, not an Irishman, but one of your powdered English scoundrels that ladies are so fond of having hanging to the backs of their carriages; one Fleming he was, that turned spy, and traitor, and informer, went privately and gave notice to the creditors where the plate was hid in the thickness of the chimney; but if he did, what happened? Why, I had my counter-spy, an honest little Irish boy, in the creditor's shop, that I had secured ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth

... general. Fouche paid him a visit in prison the day before his death, and offered him "Bonaparte's commission as a Field-marshal, and a diploma as a grand officer of the Legion of Honour, provided he would turn informer against Moreau, of whose treachery against himself in 1797 he was reminded. On the other hand, he was informed that, in consequence of his former denials, if he persisted in his refractory conduct, he should never more appear ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... culprits to rest, until we saw the cat laid well on their backs. These plunderings were in consequence of informers, and there was no name, not even that of a federalist, was so odious with all the prisoners, as that of an informer. We never failed to punish an informer. Nothing but the advanced age of a man, (who was sixty years old) prevented him from being whipped for informing Captain Shortland of what the old man considered an injury, and for which he put the man accused, into the black hole. An informer, a traitor, and an avowed federalist, were ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse

... my way," said the man; and as the order was given to slip the anchor, with a small buoy left to mark its place, the informer secured his boat to one of the ringbolts astern, and then drew close in; and mounted over the bulwark to stand beside the man ...
— Cutlass and Cudgel • George Manville Fenn

... atrocious reply: "Why do you meddle?" Bridau then sagely advised Madame Descoings to keep quiet and await events. But instead of conciliating Robespierre's housekeeper, she fretted and fumed against that informer, and even complained to a member of the Convention, who, trembling for himself, replied hastily, "I will speak of it to Robespierre." The handsome petitioner put faith in this promise, which the other carefully forgot. A few loaves of ...
— The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac

... which I had ordered to be brought together with those of the deities, and besides, cursed Christ, while those who are true Christians, it is said, cannot be compelled to do any one of these things, I thought it right to set them at liberty. Others, when accused by an informer, confessed that they were Christians, and soon after denied the fact. They said they had been, but had ceased to be, some three, some more, not a few even twenty years previously. All these worshiped your image and those of the gods, and cursed Christ. But they affirmed that the sum-total ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta

... rapidly to recover her strength she also recovered her self-possession, also the results of her training. Foremost among these were her suspicions of the police, whom she had come to believe were organized by society to restrain and harass the poor; that the informer was the lowest grade ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray

... beneath the outer crust of quietness and security. If some great plot were hatching, if some great upheaval were at hand, why might not he scent out something beforehand? Why might not he discover what was baffling the sagacity of others? He had no wish to be a spy or an informer; he had too much generous sympathy with the oppressed for that. But he was intensely curious about it all, and he felt as though his youth and obscurity would be his best protection if he chose to make some investigations ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green

... "no, never will I be an informer against the subjects of the king." [Footnote: Marie Antoinette's own words.—See Goncourt, "Marie ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach

... feelings of gratitude towards the King himself. His majesty promised this person not to bring him forward in the business at all, and has refused to give up his name, even to me. But his conviction of the truth of all that was told was so strong, that the previous informer was sent for last night at one o'clock to the palace at Kensington, to which place I also had been summoned. The whole facts, the names, the designs of everybody concerned, were then completely discovered, and I have been busying myself ever since I rose, ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James

... with the sand, gravelly stuff, and red earth, to sink and drain off during their absence. I by no means relished this undertaking: besides that it would expose me to imminent danger, it was odious to my feelings to become a spy and an informer. This I stated to the sultan, but he gave no credit to this motive; and, attributing my reluctance wholly to fear, he promised that he would take effectual measures to secure my safety; and that, after I had executed this commission, he would immediately send ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth

... may learn from the case of an Irish measure where a fine was awarded as the punishment of a particular misdemeanour, and the Act declared that one-half of the sum should go to the county, one-half to the informer. Parliament, however, altered the law, but overlooked the context. Imprisonment with hard labour was decreed as the penalty of the offence, and the clause remained—"one-half to the county, one-half to ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever

... assassins lived close to my door, at the very time I was supreme magistrate of the province, and extended their devastations to the cities of Poonah and Hyderabad. I shall never forget, when, to convince me of the fact, one of the chiefs of the Stranglers, who had turned informer against them, caused thirteen bodies to be dug up from the ground beneath my tent, and offered to produce any number from the soil in ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue

... cheering with an inexhaustible vigour, every man smoking and carrying a "thrifle iv a switch." Portraits of Mr. Balfour found a ready sale, and Tussaud's great exhibition of waxworks next door to the hall was quite unable to compete with the living hero. Messrs. Burke and Hare, Parnell and Informer Carey, Tim Healy and Breeches O'Brien, Mr. Gladstone and Palmer the poisoner, with other benefactors and philanthropists, were at a discount. The outsiders were waiting to see Mr. Balfour, but they were disappointed. Lord Iveagh's carriage suddenly ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)

... "Hasid" an envier: in the fourth couplet "Azul" (Azzal, etc.) a chider, blamer; elsewhere "Lawwam" accuser, censor, slanderer; "Washi,"whisperer, informer; "Rakib"spying, envious rival; "Ghabit"one emulous without envy; and "Shamit" a "blue" (fierce) enemy who rejoices over another's calamities. Arabic literature abounds in allusions to this unpleasant category of "damned ill-natured friends;" and Spanish and Portuguese letters, including Brazilian, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4 • Richard F. Burton

... accord porter and carpenter designated Brotteaux's lodging, the only quarrel now between them being who should have the assignat for a hundred sols promised the informer. ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France

... the dog, and endeavored to save him till the anger of the governor was over. He placed him on board of a vessel sailing from and to the city, so as to prevent his coming on land. The governor being informed of this by some spy or informer, I know not whom, but of such there is no lack, summoned the man again before him, and asked him if he had killed his dog. The man answered he had not, but had done thus and so, whereupon the governor reprimanded him severely, imposed a heavy fine upon him, and required, I believe, two of ...
— Journal of Jasper Danckaerts, 1679-1680 • Jasper Danckaerts

... standing about. No sooner had he surveyed them than he became aware that Northway was sauntering directly towards the place where Glazzard stood; Mrs. Wade remained in the doorway. Unperceived, the informer came close behind his confederate and ...
— Denzil Quarrier • George Gissing

... that Mr. Latimer was a spy, he may, upon such suspicion, have caused him to be carried off and confined somewhere? Such things are done at elections, and on occasions less pressing than when men think their lives are in danger from an informer.' ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott

... on the credit of the informer, without knowing whether it was true or false, and he proceeded. "How are we to have white hammock-clothes, sky-sail masts, and all other finery, besides a coat of paint for the ship's sides every six weeks, if we don't expend all these things in action, and pretend they were ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat

... "He's an informer," sobbed Kate. "He came down here to spy on you, uncle, and to try and show that the blessed miracle was a makeshift. I knew it long before he told me, by his insulting ways. He wanted to make love ...
— The Miraculous Revenge - Little Blue Book #215 • Bernard Shaw

... Harcourt has been told by any one that the Lagden Commission recommended any of these pitiless iniquities, then we are afraid that his informer is a romancer of the superlative degree. The Lagden report was never discussed in any South African legislature, much less adopted by any Parliament in South Africa; indeed, it is detested because it recommended a Native Franchise for South Africa ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje

... such information as it was doubtless in his power to give concerning the forces and plans of Vich Ian Vohr and the other Highland chiefs, he might, after a brief detention, be allowed to go free. Edward fiercely exclaimed that he would die rather than turn informer against those who had been his friends and hosts. Whereupon, having refused all hospitality, he was conducted to a small room, there to be guarded till there was a chance of sending him under escort to the Castle ...
— Red Cap Tales - Stolen from the Treasure Chest of the Wizard of the North • Samuel Rutherford Crockett

... will hold the balance between the benefits thus attributed to law and punishment and the degrading effect of the latter on humanity; those who will estimate the torrent of depravity poured abroad in human society by the informer, favored by the Judge even, and paid for in clinking cash by governments, under the pretext of aiding to unmask crime; those who will go within prison walls and there see what human beings become when deprived of liberty, when subjected to the care of brutal keepers, to coarse, cruel ...
— Anarchism and Other Essays • Emma Goldman

... seen that the ancient tithingman was pre-eminently a general snook, to use an old and expressive word,—an informer, both in and out of meeting,—a very necessary, but somewhat odious, and certainly at times very absurd officer. He was in a degree a constable, a selectman, a teacher, a tax-collector, an inspector, a sexton, a home-watcher, and ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle

... when I saw the diabolical-looking little villain soon after appear on deck. I promised the informer that I would not forget him, and would be on my guard, though I did not give him any credit for disinterested motives in mentioning what had occurred. I had no difficulty by daylight in recognising my friend the captain, nor shall I again ...
— Tales of the Sea - And of our Jack Tars • W.H.G. Kingston



Words linked to "Informer" :   grass, betrayer, sneaker, inform, stoolpigeon, stoolie, source, informant, canary, supergrass, copper's nark, sneak, snitcher, stool pigeon, nark, fink, snitch



Copyright © 2024 e-Free Translation.com