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

S&P affirms Indonesia’s BBB long-term sovereign credit rating, and expects the government to keep its fiscal deficit below the legal ceiling of 3% of GDP.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 14, 2026

The credit rating agency believes the risk has graduated from a cryptocurrency-specific problem to a broader threat affecting banks and custodians.

From Barron's ● May 22, 2026

Prime among those perks is a fixed interest rate; the interest rate on a private student loan can range from 2.99% to about 17.99%, based on your credit rating.

From MarketWatch ● May 15, 2026

Guterres also denounced global lending systems, debt burdens and international credit rating structures that he said unfairly disadvantaged African economies.

From BBC ● May 12, 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