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

One natural advantage that tech companies have is their massive cash pile and high credit rating.

From The Wall Street Journal

The company said it expects to maintain strong credit ratings, and that it will still have the flexibility to execute its capital-allocation priorities of further tuck-in deals, followed by opportunistic stock buybacks.

From The Wall Street Journal

But with supply-chain finance, the bank will set the discount, or fee, based on the buyer’s credit rating, not the seller’s.

From The Wall Street Journal

Worse, some are using opaque, off-balance-sheet “special purpose vehicles” to house the newly issued debt without affecting their credit ratings.

From Barron's

“PSKY already has a ‘junk’ credit rating and it has negative free cash flows with a high degree of dependency on its legacy linear business,” Warner Bros.

From The Wall Street Journal