Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
Wiktionary
n. (context finance English) An estimate, based on a company, government or person's history of borrowing and repayment and/or available financial resources, that is used by creditors to determine the maximum amount of credit that can be extended without undue risk.
Wikipedia
A credit rating is an evaluation of the credit risk of a prospective debtor (an individual, a business, company or a government), predicting their ability to pay back the debt, and an implicit forecast of the likelihood of the debtor defaulting. The credit rating represents an evaluation of a credit rating agency of the qualitative and quantitative information for the prospective debtor, including information provided by the prospective debtor and other non-public information obtained by the credit rating agency's analysts.
A credit reporting (or credit score) – in distinction to a credit rating – is an evaluation of an individual's credit worthiness, which is done by a credit bureau or consumer credit reporting agency.
Usage examples of "credit rating".
California's credit rating has been slashed to junk-bond status, and citizens are advised to stock up for the not-too-far-off day when cigarettes and Botox become the hard currency of choice.
Right this minute, if your credit rating is good, you can walk down the street to an arms store and buy a bandolier of micronukes, and those would be enough to clear the average city block.
He pursed his lips in surprise as her credit rating flashed on his doublecheck screen.
Your businesses have just gone belly up, your security is a mess, and your credit rating is currently slightly lower than that of a dead clone with leprosy.
She was not able to control the girls, and I learned that a little fist fight even broke out between a Canadian and an Argentine over whether a man had a credit rating or not.