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credential

noun · adjective · verb

Simple meaning

Documentary or electronic evidence that a person has certain status or privileges.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

krihdehnchuhl

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US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

kɹɪˈdɛntʃəl

This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.

IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

noun

  1. chiefly in the plural

    Documentary or electronic evidence that a person has certain status or privileges

  2. informal

    Evidence of skill or excellence.

adjective

  1. Pertaining to or serving as an introduction or recommendation (to someone).

verb

  1. To furnish with credentials

Word at a Glance

Difficulty
C1 · Advanced (estimated)
Frequency
Uncommon
Typical Use
Varies by meaning

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

Aura for this meaning

This meaning: Documentary or electronic evidence that a person has certain status or privileges

Used this way, credential is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.

Emotional tone
Neutral
Formality
Neutral
Intensity
Not strongly marked
How common
Moderately common
Connotation
Matter-of-fact
Usage feel
Neutral and straightforward

Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.

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Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

teaching credentialcredential societyeducational credentialprofessional credentialcredential programimportant credentialcredential lettersecondary credential

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Word Family

Related forms, grouped by how they connect.

Inflected forms

Grammatical variations of the same word.

  • credentialsnounPlural form

    A document attesting to the truth of certain stated facts.

More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin

Synonyms

Sense: documentary

certificate

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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.