noun
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of creditor
1400–50; late Middle English creditour < Latin crēditor, equivalent to crēdi- variant stem of crēdere to believe, entrust ( see credit) + -tor -tor
Explanation
If Joe loans you two dollars so you can buy a cup of coffee, Joe is your creditor — you owe him two dollars and a big thank you! If you have a credit card, the bank that issues it to you is your creditor. What they give you is not just a piece of plastic: rather it is a line of credit or a certain amount of money that they have agreed to loan you at fixed terms. Make sure you pay it off every month or you'll become a debtor!
Vocabulary lists containing creditor
Believe It or Not: Cred
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cred
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Personal Finance and Financial Literacy - Introductory
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Parent company BrewDog PLC is still expected to pay its preferential creditor, HMRC, in full for £3.66m tax owed - mainly VAT and excise duty.
From BBC ● Sep. 18, 2026
At one point in the bankruptcy, it pitted three creditor groups against one another, threatening to raise capital with third-party financiers at the expense of some existing lenders, the people said.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 17, 2026
Beyond its role as a major creditor, China has built a broad economic presence in Zambia, with interests spanning copper mining, roads, airports, power projects and industrial parks.
From Barron's ● Aug. 10, 2026
China is also the largest single bilateral creditor with Solomon Islands debt to Chinese banks for infrastructure projects doubling last year.
From Barron's ● Jun. 3, 2026
I didn’t want Rufus having to face some creditor that I had angered with my twentieth-century brevity—which could come across as nineteenth-century abruptness, even discourtesy.
From "Kindred" by Octavia Butler
Whether buying equity or spending directly, the capital investment remains tied up driving core growth and isn’t available to hand back to shareholders or creditors.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 9, 2026
Even if private creditors were spared, rating agencies might consider cancellation of central bank holdings a “selective default.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 8, 2026
Since the pension reforms failed, bondholders have been on notice that they might not be France’s senior creditors after all, as Stanford economist Hanno Lustig argues.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 8, 2026
However, he managed to secure an agreement with his creditors and wrote his first novel, Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less in 1976.
From BBC ● Oct. 5, 2026
Holmes believed he and Chamberlin would be meeting alone, one on one, but when Holmes arrived at the office, he found it occupied by two dozen creditors and their attorneys and one police detective.
From "The Devil in the White City" by Erik Larson
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
