Accreditation

How to spell accreditation

13 letters · 5 syllables

How to pronounce accreditation

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does accreditation mean?

1. nounOfficial certification that a person, organisation, or course meets a recognised standard.

Accreditation in a sentence

• The college lost its accreditation after failing the inspection.

• The laboratory is seeking accreditation from the national standards body.

Where does accreditation come from?

Language of origin: French

This word traces back to the Latin verb credere, meaning 'to believe' or 'to trust', the same root that gives us 'credit', 'creed', and 'credible'. The immediate parent is the French verb accréditer, formed from the phrase à crédit, literally 'to credit', which carried the idea of giving something official trust or standing. English took 'accredit' in the early 1600s, originally meaning to give authority or sanction to a person, such as a diplomat sent to a foreign court with official credentials. From the verb came the noun 'accreditation', describing the act of formally recognising that a body or qualification meets an approved standard. The buried sense of 'trust' explains the spelling trap: the cred at its heart is the same cred you trust in 'credit', and the double c with single d catches many adults out.

How the word is built

• ac- (variant of ad-, to)
• cred (from Latin credere: to believe, to trust)
• -it
• -ation (noun-forming suffix)