credit rating

American  

noun

1. a classification of credit risk based on investigation of a customer's or potential customer's financial resources, prior payment pattern, and personal history or degree of personal responsibility for debts incurred.

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credit rating British  

noun

1. an evaluation of the creditworthiness of an individual or business enterprise

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credit rating Cultural  

1. An evaluation of the financial trustworthiness of an individual, firm, or government.

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Etymology

Origin of credit rating

First recorded in 1955–60

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

credit rating

It has to raise debt to fund it, with a tenant—OpenAI—that doesn’t have a credit rating.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 15, 2026

CHICAGO—In 2022, the city of Chicago hit a milestone it had been targeting for seven years: It lifted a key credit rating out of junk status.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 24, 2026

Investors are concerned that the company’s increasing capital expenditures are straining its balance sheet and potentially pushing its credit rating below investment grade.

From MarketWatch ● Aug. 11, 2026

President Nicusor Dan, a pro-European centrist, tried to address people's concerns last weekend after Romania avoided a downgrade of its credit rating by Fitch to "junk", or below investment grade.

From Barron's ● Aug. 6, 2026

Nina Chandler Murray, an eighty-five-year-old relative of the Poor family of Standard & Poor’s, the investment credit rating firm, is convinced that the world of the elite was more genteel in the old days.

From "Class Matters" by The New York Times