credits

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of credit.

   The closing credits listed every dancer in the production.

   Several tax credits were available to first-time homebuyers that year.

   Note

   The plural belongs only to the countable meanings of credit. The titles that roll at the start or end of a film are normally plural (you sit through the credits, rarely a credit), and acknowledgments of individual contributions count up the same way. Recognition and trust do not: a person earns credit, not credits, for good work. Even the privilege of buying on trust stays singular, though the periods allowed for payment can be counted.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of credit.

   The coach credits the team's discipline for their late-season run.

   Each month the system credits a small amount of interest to the savings balance.

   Note

   Every meaning behind this form is transitive, so it always takes an object, and the object decides the sense. A skeptic who credits a rumor believes it, a bank that credits a payment adds it to an account, and a program that credits its writer acknowledges the work. A good deed that credits its doer brings honor. The spelling is shared with the noun plural, but only the verb needs something after it.

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