passive source

1. 1.

   an informant who is not assigned to obtain specific intelligence but who routinely passes on whatever information he or she has

   Broaderinformant

Questions about passive source

What does passive source mean?

passive source means "an informant who is not assigned to obtain specific intelligence but who routinely passes on whatever information he or she has".

Is passive source a common word?

passive source is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.