supergrass
UK/ˈs(j)uːpə(ɹ)ˌɡɹɑːs/
supergrass noun: an informer providing substantial quantities of information on criminal or terrorist activities to the police.
Noun
supergrass (plural supergrasses)
- An informer providing substantial quantities of information on criminal or terrorist activities to the police.
- I have to tell the hon. and learned Gentleman that I do not know the facts which led to that decision. On the other hand, although it is an unpleasant fact of life, there are now and again occasions on which, in order to achieve convictions against really bad villains, it is necessary to use people...1979 July 23, Havers, Michael (Attorney-General), “Witnesses (Immunity From Prosecution)”, in Hansard, volume 971, Parliament of the United Kingdom, page 64
- In several cases the supergrass spent days in the witness box giving evidence of scores of offences allegedly committed by many individuals over a period of years.2000, D. Walsh, Bloody Sunday and the Rule of Law in Northern Ireland, page 241
Synonyms of supergrass
Forms of supergrass
| plural | supergrasses |
|---|
Origin of supergrass
From super- + grass, from grass (“an informer”).
Questions about supergrass
- What does supergrass mean?
- Supergrass means an informer providing substantial quantities of information on criminal or terrorist activities to the police.
- What part of speech is supergrass?
- Supergrass is a noun.
- How do you pronounce supergrass?
- Supergrass is pronounced /ˈs(j)uːpə(ɹ)ˌɡɹɑːs/ (UK).
- What is the plural of supergrass?
- The plural of supergrass is supergrasses.
Words near supergrass in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: supergrass (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-supergrass.wav.
Cite this entry: “supergrass.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/supergrass. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.