whistleblower

noun

whis·​tle·​blow·​er ˈ(h)wi-səl-ˌblō-ər 

variants or whistle-blower

plural whistleblowers or whistle-blowers

: one who reveals something covert or who informs against another

especially : an employee who brings wrongdoing by an employer or by other employees to the attention of a government or law enforcement agency

Note: A whistleblower is commonly protected legally from retaliation.

I think whistleblowers play a hugely important role in countering the worst corporate and government excesses.

—Damon Poeter

… pledges to protect whistle-blowers who fear reprisals for their efforts.

—Wall Street Journal

Congress also added significant new protection for whistleblowers. The 1986 act provides remedies including reinstatement, back-pay with interest, and, as appropriate, punitive damages for whistleblowers who are discharged, demoted, or discriminated against due to involvement with a False Claims disclosure.

—Bradford A. Penney

whistleblowing

ˈ(h)wi-səl-ˌblō-iŋ 

adjective

or whistle-blowing

a whistleblowing report

Many states have already enacted laws that protect whistle-blowing employees from retaliation.

—Greg Critser

whistleblowing noun

or whistle-blowing

… a National Security Agency agent who got in trouble for whistle-blowing.

—Renée Camus

Examples of whistleblower in a Sentence

There are laws to protect whistleblowers who reveal corporate malfeasance.

Recent Examples on the Web

Cumming said the city's information technology department also abruptly cut off part of her office administrator's access, including the ability to see who else in city government may be looking at whistleblower complaints and documents related to ethics investigations. —Mike Hellgren, CBS News, 28 Jan. 2026

But over the past decade, critics, several whistleblower lawsuits, government investigations and other probes have alleged that the system encourages aggressive coding practices across health plans to illegally drive up revenue. —Annika Kim Constantino, CNBC, 28 Jan. 2026

The lawsuit filed in San Francisco says internal WhatsApp engineers — deemed whistleblowers — allege that the platform’s internal team can request access to user content to conduct their tasks, bypassing encryption. —Zak Doffman, Forbes.com, 27 Jan. 2026

This order is part of White’s efforts to figure out who leaked confidential court documents to an independent Southern California news site, The Current Report, which published a two-part series depicting Wenger as a whistleblower who was retaliated against with the prosecution. —Nate Gartrell, Mercury News, 27 Jan. 2026

Word History

First Known Use

1906, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for whistleblower

• blower
• goer
• grower
• knower
• lower
• mower
• rower
• slower
• sower
• thrower

Legal Definition

whistleblower

noun

whis·​tle·​blow·​er

ˈhwi-səl-ˌblō-ər

: an employee who brings wrongdoing by an employer or other employees to the attention of a government or law enforcement agency and who is commonly vested by statute with rights and remedies for retaliation compare qui tam action

whistleblowing

-iŋ

noun