rating

Pluralratings

1. 1
   nouncountable

   A position on a scale used to measure or compare something.

   The restaurant's hygiene rating fell after the surprise visit.

   Each product receives a rating based on customer reviews.

   Similarscore, grade, ranking

2. 2
   nouncountable

   A number, letter, or other mark showing how capable or able something is.

   Climbing ropes are sold with a strength rating printed on the label.

   The amplifier's rating indicates how much power it can deliver safely.

   Similargrade

3. 3
   nouncountable

   A measure of the size of the audience that watched a television program.

   The network canceled the series when its rating fell below expectations.

   Advertisers pay more to run commercials during shows with a strong rating.

   Similarviewership

   Note

   Broadcasting turned the word into a headcount. Newton N. Minow's Television and the Public Interest (1961) stated its limits plainly: "A rating, at best, is an indication of how many people saw what you gave them." That makes it a count of viewers rather than a verdict on quality, which sets it apart from the ranked judgments of a position on a scale.

4. 4
   nouncountable

   An evaluation of status, especially someone's financial standing.

   The agency lowered the country's rating after its budget deficit grew.

   Investors studied the firm's rating closely before buying its bonds.

   Similarstanding, grade

   Note

   Its most familiar partner is credit, as in a poor credit rating or a good one. Ratings like these come from a judging body, and the question of who pays the judge follows them. Blake Ellis and Melanie Hicken's 2015 report on the Better Business Bureau notes that its "unbiased ratings" of businesses are funded largely by fees from the companies it rates.

5. 5
   verb

   Present participle of rate.

   The judges are rating each performance on a strict scale.

   Rating films for a living can dull your love of cinema.

   Note

   Two jobs share this spelling. One is the -ing form after be (the judges are rating each act), and the other is the verbal noun (rating films is tiring work). Behind it stands a wide verb: to rank, to estimate worth, to deserve, to set a machine's safe limits, and in Britain to value property for local tax. Once the act settles into a result, the word becomes a countable noun, as in a position on a scale.

6. 6
   nouncountable

   A seaman serving aboard a warship.

   A rating on the destroyer spent months learning shipboard routines.

   The captain praised the ratings for their work during the storm.

   Similarsailor, seaman

   Note

   In naval talk the word names people rather than scores: the sailors who crew a warship. It often appears in the plural, and it is not tied to any one navy. A 2014 BBC News report counts some 400 Russian ratings living in Saint-Nazaire while they waited for their new command ship, the Vladivostok.

7. 7
   nounBritishcountable

   In the navy, an enlisted sailor who holds neither a commission nor a warrant.

   The rating had served five years before earning his promotion.

   Officers and ratings ate in separate messes aboard the ship.

   Similarseaman, sailor

   Oppositeofficer

   Note

   British usage draws the line sharply: the ratings are everyone below the officers, and the two words are set against each other. Winston S. Churchill's The Hinge of Fate (1950) counts "fifty officers and seven hundred and fifty ratings." In the Royal Navy the ratings run in order from ordinary seaman and able seaman through leading seaman to petty officer and chief petty officer. Compare the general warship crewman.

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