tattler

as in informant
a person who provides information about another's wrongdoing as the office's resident tattler, she can be counted on to report any unauthorized use of the photocopiers

Synonyms & Similar Words

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Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Recent Examples of tattler Tattling to the Bachelor doesn’t always go well for the tattler. Kristen Baldwin, EW.com, 25 Feb. 2025 Mortimer Zuckerman, the owner, hired him to replace a British editor who had turned it from a brash, tough-guy paper into a tattler of celebrity gossip and supermarket tabloid stunts. Robert D. McFadden, BostonGlobe.com, 5 Aug. 2020 Being a tattler or someone who is too focused on the drama rarely works out, largely because those dudes are more focused on screen time than the lead. Martha Sorren, refinery29.com, 20 June 2019 There are social repercussions for kids who develop a reputation as tattlers: they get left out. K. Lori Hanson Ph.d., miamiherald, 8 Mar. 2018 Dwight and Eugene remain at an ideological impasse, but Eugene is too busy waffling between his morality and his desire to stay alive to actually pick a side—and for reasons unknown, Dwight hasn’t found a way to simply ax the potential tattler. Laura Bradley, HWD, 3 Dec. 2017
Recent Examples of Synonyms for tattler
Noun
  • The witness was in fact facing 30 years in another murder case and went on record as an informant for police to take years off.
    J.M. Banks, Kansas City Star, 25 Feb. 2025
  • Both the for-profit and nonprofit businesses were founded by Edward Clancy, a businessman and former political consultant who once worked as an FBI informant.
    Jeff McDonald, San Diego Union-Tribune, 23 Feb. 2025
Noun
  • The Ukrainian soldiers began to see Russian civilians as a hindrance — or worse, as potential informers who could give away their positions.
    Ekaterina Bodyagina Nanna Heitmann, New York Times, 12 Feb. 2025
  • The arrests were part of wide-ranging Establishment attacks on the new generation of pop stars in Britain at the time, done through connivance with informers and a hostile conservative media.
    Bill Wyman, Vulture, 30 Jan. 2025
Noun
  • Miami-Dade is the canary in the Florida coal mine for Democrats, where Republican strength signals much wider problems.
    Douglas Hanks, Miami Herald, 26 Feb. 2025
  • This almost never happened with the canaries, who removed the husk with extraordinary diligence and skill.
    Maja Mielke, JSTOR Daily, 20 Feb. 2025
Noun
  • The two of them, as though after a party, would have stood at the sink cleaning dishes and wondering which among the attendees was the traitor, the tattletale.
    Hazlitt, Hazlitt, 26 July 2023
  • We’re basically guaranteed to see that thing where one person tells Zach that another person is there for the wrong reasons, but then the tattletale winds up consumed by their own vendetta and self-sabotages.
    Andrea Marks, Rolling Stone, 23 Jan. 2023
Noun
  • After a roll call where each reveals their imminent reprisal of fan-favorite Dimension 20 characters — including a Staten Island divorcee, a wisecracking pizza rat, and a drug dealer still coping from a breakup — the game begins.
    Eric Francisco, Rolling Stone, 1 Mar. 2025
  • Grissom was a baseball rat, young and versatile, sure of himself on the field and a menace in the box.
    Chad Jennings, The Athletic, 26 Feb. 2025

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Cite this Entry

“Tattler.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/tattler. Accessed 12 Mar. 2025.

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