agent provocateur

See also: Agent Provocateur, and Agent provocateur

English

Etymology

Borrowed from French agent provocateur (literally “provocative agent”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /aʒɑ̃ pʁɔvɔkatœʁ/
• IPA^(key): /ˈeɪ.dʒənt ˌpɹəʊ.vɒk.æ.tʊə(ɹ)/

Noun

agent provocateur (plural agents provocateurs)

1. A person who secretly disrupts a group's activities from within the group; an instigator, troublemaker.
   • 1926, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Land of Mist‎^[1]:

     "This agent-provocateur business is quite foreign to British justice."

   • 1938, George Orwell, chapter 9, in Homage to Catalonia:

     I was told afterwards—quite possibly it was true—that agents provocateurs were touching off masses of explosive in order to increase the general noise and panic.

   • 1990, Peter Hopkirk, The Great Game, Folio Society, published 2010, page 50:

     Suspecting that the man was an agent provocateur sent by the Prince, Pottinger told him that regrettably he had neither the knowledge nor the authority to instruct him in this or any other religion.

   • 2012 March 25, Nadine El-Enany, The Guardian:

     The criminalisation of protest has been aided by the director of public prosecution's recent guidelines on prosecuting protesters, which fail to account for the role of the police in prompting violence at demonstrations through tactics such as kettling, the use of batons, agents provocateurs and undercover policing.

Translations

a person who disrupts a group's activities from within

• Arabic: please add this translation if you can
• Armenian: please add this translation if you can
• Basque: agente zirikatzaile
• Bulgarian: please add this translation if you can
• Chinese:

  Cantonese: please add this translation if you can

  Mandarin: please add this translation if you can

• Czech: please add this translation if you can
• Danish: please add this translation if you can
• Dutch: please add this translation if you can
• Esperanto: provoka agento
• Finnish: provokaattori (fi)
• French: agent provocateur (fr)
• Georgian: please add this translation if you can
• German: Agent Provocateur (de) m; Provokateur (de) m
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}
• Hebrew: סמוי (he) m (samúy), מושתל m (mushtál), פרובוקטור m (provokátor)
• Hindi: please add this translation if you can
• Hungarian: please add this translation if you can
• Italian: agente provocatore m
• Japanese: プロバカートル
• Persian: آژان پرووکاتور (âžân provokâtor)
• Polish: prowokator (pl)
• Portuguese: agente provocador m
• Romanian: please add this translation if you can
• Russian: please add this translation if you can
• Spanish: agente provocador
• Swedish: lockfågel c
• Thai: please add this translation if you can
• Turkish: ajan provokatör (tr)
• Vietnamese: please add this translation if you can

Further reading

• agent provocateur on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

---

French

Noun

agent provocateur m (plural agents provocateurs, feminine agente provocatrice)

1. agent provocateur; instigator, troublemaker

Descendants

• → English: agent provocateur
• → Persian: آژان پرووکاتور (âžân provokâtor)