A rating is an

evaluation In common usage, evaluation is a systematic determination and assessment of a subject's merit, worth and significance, using criteria governed by a set of Standardization, standards. It can assist an organization, program, design, project or any o ...

or assessment of something, in terms of a metric (e.g. quality, quantity, a combination of both,...). Rating or rating system may also refer to:

Business and economics

Credit rating A credit rating is an evaluation of the credit risk of a prospective debtor (an individual, a business, company or a government). It is the practice of predicting or forecasting the ability of a supposed debtor to pay back the debt or default. The ...

, estimating the credit worthiness of an individual, corporation or country * Ranally city rating system, a tool used to classify U.S. cities based on economic function * Telecommunications rating, the calculated cost of a phone call

Entertainment

Arbitron ratings Nielsen Audio (formerly Arbitron) is a consumer research company in the United States that collects listener data on radio broadcasting audiences. It was founded as the American Research Bureau by Jim Seiler in 1949 and became national by mergin ...

or Nielsen Audio, consumer research on radio broadcasting audiences in the United States *

Content rating A content rating (also known as maturity rating) rates the suitability of TV shows, movies, comic books, or video games to this primary targeted audience. A content rating usually places a media source into one of a number of different categories, ...

, the suitability of a TV broadcast, movie, comic book, or video game to its audience **

Motion picture rating system A motion picture content rating system classifies films based on their suitability for audiences due to their treatment of issues such as sex, violence, or substance abuse, their use of profanity, or other matters typically deemed unsuitable for ...

, categorizes films according to their suitability for adults and children **

Television content rating systems Television content rating systems are systems for evaluating the content and reporting the suitability of television programmes for minors. Many countries have their own television rating system and countries' rating processes vary by local ...

, categorizes TV shows based on suitability for audiences **

Video game content rating system A video game content rating system is a system used for the classification of video games based on suitability for target audiences. Most of these systems are associated with and/or sponsored by a government, and are sometimes part of the local m ...

, categorizes video games based on suitability for players *

Audience measurement Audience measurement calculates how many people are in an audience, usually in relation to radio listenership and television viewership, but also in relation to newspaper and magazine readership and, increasingly, web traffic. The term is someti ...

Nielsen ratings Nielsen Media Research (NMR) is an American firm that measures media audiences, including television, radio, theatre, films (via the AMC Theatres MAP program), and newspapers. Headquartered in New York City, it is best known for the Nielsen rat ...

, measuring viewership of United States television programs

Polling and opinion

* Approval rating, the share of respondents to an opinion poll who approve of a politician ** United States presidential approval ratings *

Cardinal voting Rated, evaluative, graded, or cardinal voting rules are a class of voting methods that allow voters to state how strongly they support a candidate, by giving each one a grade on a separate scale. The distribution of ratings for each candidate� ...

systems, where candidates for office are assigned scores ("ratings") independently from each other **

Approval voting Approval voting is a single-winner rated voting system where voters can approve of all the candidates as they like instead of Plurality voting, choosing one. The method is designed to eliminate vote-splitting while keeping election administration ...

, a voting system that elects the candidate with the highest approval ratings * Rating (sociological group), a Ukrainian non-governmental polling organization *

Reputation system A reputation system is a program or algorithm that allow users of an online community to rate each other in order to build trust (social sciences), trust through reputation. Some common uses of these systems can be found on E-commerce websites s ...

, programs that allow users to rate each other in online communities

Sports

Rating (chess) A chess rating system is a system used in chess to estimate the strength of a player, based on their performance versus other players. They are used by organizations such as FIDE, the US Chess Federation (USCF or US Chess), International Correspon ...

, estimate of the strength of a player, based on performance versus other players **

Elo rating system The Elo rating system is a method for calculating the relative skill levels of players in zero-sum games such as chess or esports. It is named after its creator Arpad Elo, a Hungarian-American chess master and physics professor. The Elo system wa ...

, a rating system used in chess and in other sports and games *

Sports rating system A sports rating system is a system that analyzes the results of sports competitions to provide ratings for each team or player. Common systems include polls of expert voters, crowdsourcing non-expert voters, betting markets, and computer systems. ...

, analyzes the results of sports competitions

Technology and engineering

* Rating (electrical), the voltage at which the appliance is designed to work *

Fire-resistance rating A fire-resistance rating typically means the duration for which a passive fire protection system can withstand a standard fire resistance test. This can be quantified simply as a measure of time, or it may entail other criteria, involving eviden ...

, the duration for a passive fire protection to withstand a standard fire resistance test *

Cetane rating Cetane number (cetane rating) (CN) is an indicator of the combustion speed of diesel fuel and compression needed for ignition. It plays a similar role for diesel as octane rating does for gasoline. The CN is an important factor in determining t ...

, an indicator of the combustion speed of diesel fuel and compression needed for ignition *

Octane rating An octane rating, or octane number, is a standard measure of a liquid fuel, fuel's ability to withstand Compression ratio, compression in an internal combustion engine without causing engine knocking. The higher the octane number, the more compres ...

, a standard measure of the performance of an engine or aviation fuel *

Performance Rating The PR (performance rating, P-rating, or Pentium rating) system was a figure of merit developed by AMD, Cyrix, IBM Microelectronics and SGS-Thomson in the mid-1990s as a method of comparing their x86 processors to those of rival Intel. The idea ...

, formerly a method of comparing x86 computer processors *

Power rating In electrical engineering and mechanical engineering, the power rating of equipment is the highest power input allowed to flow through particular equipment. According to the particular discipline, the term ''power'' may refer to electrical or ...

, in electrical or mechanical engineering, the highest power input allowed to flow through particular equipment

Other uses

Rating (clinical trials) Within the field of clinical trials, rating is the process by which a human evaluator subjectively judges the response of a patient to a medical treatment. The rating can include more than one treatment response. The assessor is normally an indepe ...

, the process by which a human evaluator subjectively judges the response of a patient to a medical treatment *

Rating (wine) A wine rating is a score assigned by one or more wine critics to a wine tasted as a summary of that critic's evaluation of that wine. A wine rating is therefore a subjective quality score, typically of a numerical nature, given to a specific bott ...

, score assigned by one or more wine critics to a wine * Rating site, a website designed for users to vote on or rate people or content *

Naval rating In military terminology, a rate or rating (also known as bluejacket in the United States) is a junior enlisted sailor in a navy who is below the military rank of warrant officer. Depending on the country and navy that uses it, the exact te ...

, an enlisted member of a navy or coast guard defined by rank and job description. *

Health care ratings Health care ratings are ratings or evaluations of health care. In the United States they have been an increasingly used tool to try to drive accountability among health care providers and in the context of classic supply/demand view of Health econo ...

, evaluations of health care *

Rating system of the Royal Navy The rating system of the Royal Navy and its predecessors was used by the Royal Navy between the beginning of the 17th century and the middle of the 19th century to categorise sailing warships, initially classing them according to their assi ...