Meaning

verb impart knowledge of some fact, state or affairs, or event to

verb give character or essence to

verb act as an informer

originFrom Middle English informen, enformen, borrowed from Old French enformer, informer (“to train, instruct, inform”), from Latin īnfōrmō (“to shape, form, train, instruct, educate”), from in- (“into”) + fōrma (“form, shape”), equivalent to in- + form.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 3.0