Creditor

How to spell creditor

8 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce creditor

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does creditor mean?

1. nounA person or organisation to whom money is owed.

Creditor in a sentence

• The company met every creditor before filing for bankruptcy.

• Each creditor received a letter outlining the repayment schedule.

Where does creditor come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word descends from the Latin creditor, meaning 'a lender' or 'one to whom a debt is owed', formed from the verb credere, which literally meant 'to trust, to entrust, or to believe'. The link is logical: when you lend money you are in effect trusting that the borrower will repay you, so the lender is quite literally the one who believes. The same credere root gives English a whole family of words, including 'credit', 'credible', 'creed', and 'incredible', all carrying that thread of belief or trust. English took 'creditor' in the late 1300s and 1400s, partly through Anglo-French legal language where it sat opposite 'debtor'. The spelling trap lives in the ending: it takes the Latin agent suffix -or rather than the more common English -er, so the word ends in 'creditor', not 'crediter'.

How the word is built

• credit- (from Latin credere: to trust, entrust, lend)
• -or (agent suffix: one who does)