Whistleblower

How to spell whistleblower

13 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce whistleblower

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does whistleblower mean?

1. nounA person who exposes illegal, dishonest, or unethical activity within an organisation.

Whistleblower in a sentence

• The whistleblower handed internal documents to a national newspaper.

• New legislation now protects any whistleblower from being dismissed.

Where does whistleblower come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a modern English compound built from two very old native parts. The first element, whistle, descends from the Old English verb hwistlian, meaning 'to make a clear shrill sound', a word formed in imitation of the noise itself; that imitative origin is why the spelling carries the awkward silent first letter and the hard-to-hear 't'. The second part comes from blow, from Old English blawan, 'to send out a current of air'. The literal image is of someone blowing a whistle to stop play or raise an alarm, much as a referee or a police constable once did. The figurative sense, a person who exposes wrongdoing or corruption within an organisation, took hold in American English in the early 1970s and spread rapidly into British and Canadian use, so the modern legal and journalistic meaning is younger than most words of its size.

How the word is built

• whistle (a device or act of blowing a sharp note)
• blow (to expel air)
• -er (agent suffix: one who does)