noun, slang ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Noun

1. 1
   One who reports a problem or violation to the authorities; especially, an employee or former employee who reports a violation by an employer. US, slang

   "We owe it to a small group of brave whistle-blowers that we know about the infractions at all."

2. 2
   an informant who exposes wrongdoing within an organization in the hope of stopping it wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms

whistleblowerabaddonaccuserbeeferbetrayerbewrayer

Example

More examples

"Instead of fixing the problem, the company fired the whistle-blower."

Etymology

From whistle + blower, referring to a police officer blowing their whistle on observing a violation of the law.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.