DictionaryAI

informed

in-FORMD/ɪnˈfɔɹmd/UKin-FAWMD/ɪnˈfɔːmd/

6 meanings of informed

Practice

  1. 1
    adjective
    Having knowledge of a fact or subject through instruction or study.

    Voters who are well informed about the issues tend to ask sharper questions.

    A properly informed jury weighs every piece of evidence presented.

    Similarapprised, abreast

    Oppositeuninformed, ignorant, unaware

    Note

    Said of people, where the "well-founded" sense is said of choices and judgments. It grades freely: more informed, most informed, and above all well-informed. Write it hyphenated before a noun (a well-informed source) and open after one (she is well informed). Apprised and up to date are close, but they lean toward knowing the latest news rather than knowing a subject.

  2. 2
    adjective
    Based on knowledge and a proper understanding of the situation.

    The board reached an informed decision after reviewing all the data.

    Informed consent requires that patients understand the risks involved.

    Similarconsidered, reasoned, educated, enlightened

    Oppositeuninformed, ill-informed, arbitrary

    Note

    Here the knowledge belongs to the judgment rather than the person. The word attaches to nouns like decision, estimate, guess and consent. Diarmaid MacCulloch's A History of Christianity (2009) offers "another informed and sobering estimate" of population collapse. An informed guess is still a guess, but one that rests on evidence. That is what separates it from a wild one.

  3. 3
    verb
    Simple past and past participle of inform.

    The agency informed residents of the upcoming road closures.

    Officials had informed the public well before the storm arrived.

    Note

    The past form carries all of the verb's jobs, not only telling. Informed by usually means shaped or influenced, as in a policy informed by research. This echoes the verb's old sense of giving form or character to something. Informed on means denounced, the work of an informer. After very or well, or before a noun, the same spelling becomes the "knowledgeable" adjective.

Less common meanings

  1. 4
    adjectiveobsolete
    Brought into being and given a definite shape or form.
    after Nilus invndation, Infinite shapes of creatures men do fynd, Informed in the mud, on which the Sunne hath shynd.
    1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene
    Note

    A different word that happens to share the spelling. It is not built from inform but from in- plus formed, with in- meaning "in": shaped, brought into form. Spenser uses it in The Faerie Queene (1590) for the creatures found "informed in the mud" after the Nile floods. It is obsolete, so a modern reader must resist hearing "knowledgeable" in it.

  2. 5
    adjectiveobsolete
    Lacking proper form; misshapen or shapeless.
    Note

    A spelling that once pointed two ways. Here in- is the negating prefix of words like incomplete, not the in- meaning "in" behind the "given form" meaning, so the same word could mean shaped or shapeless. Spenser could still use it in 1596. Today every reader hears "knowledgeable," so in modern prose write misshapen or unformed instead, and keep this sense for reading older verse.

  3. 6
    adjectiveobsolete
    Of a star, not counted among those forming any of the ancient constellations.

    Like a player on the field who belongs to no team.

    Astronomers of old marked the informed stars lying between the great figures.

    Several informed stars near Orion were later gathered into new constellations.

    Note

    Old astronomy needed a name for the leftovers. The informed stars were those lying outside the figures of the ancient constellations rather than drawn into them. The word applies to stars only. It survives now only in the history of astronomy, so when the phrase is quoted it needs a gloss, because a modern reader will take it for a compliment.

informed is a form of inform

inform, verb: To communicate knowledge to someone; to tell a person facts about something. Full entry

Forms
informinforms he/she/itinforming -ing forminformed past tense, past participle
Spelling
inform → informed: add -ed
Sound
The ending sounds like /d/.

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Origins

Meanings 1–3

Formed from the verb "inform" with the suffix "-ed".

Meanings 4–6

From the prefix "in-" plus "formed": the first sense probably uses "in-" meaning "in", while the second uses "in-" as a prefix of negation.