accredit - Wiktionary, the free dictionary (original) (raw)

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

accredit (third-person singular simple present accredits, present participle accrediting, simple past and past participle accredited)

  1. (transitive) To ascribe; attribute; credit with.
    Synonyms: chalk up to, impute, put down to; see also Thesaurus:ascribe
    Nationalisms often accredit all the unemployment issues to immigration.
    • 1929, Abraham Zevi Idelsohn, Jewish Music: Its Historical Development, page 454:
      Goldfaden continued to compose and compile dramas and musical plays. He is accredited with 26 pieces, of which, however, only eight are of any value.
  2. (transitive) To put or bring into credit; to invest with credit or authority; to sanction.
    • February 17, 1793, William Cowper, letter to Samuel Rose, Esq.
      His censure will […] accredit his praises.
  3. (transitive) To send with letters credential, as an ambassador, envoy, or diplomatic agent; to authorize, as a messenger or delegate.
  4. (transitive) To believe; to put trust in.
    • 1820, Robert Southey, The Life of Wesley; and Rise and Progress of Methodism:
      He accredited and repeated stories of apparitions and witchcraft.
    • 1855, George Cornewall Lewis, Enquiry into the Credibility of the Early Roman History:
      The version of early Roman history which was accredited in the fifth century.
    • 1859, George Meredith, chapter 15, in The Ordeal of Richard Feverel. A History of Father and Son. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), London: Chapman and Hall, →OCLC:
      He spoke as if he saw the Truth, and, persisting in it so long, he was accredited by those who did not understand him, and silenced them that did.
  5. (transitive) To enter on the credit side of an account book.
  6. (transitive) To certify as meeting a predetermined standard; to certify an educational institution as upholding the specified standards necessary for the students to advance.
    The school was an accredited college.
  7. (transitive) To recognize as outstanding.
  8. (transitive, literally) To credit.

to certify as meeting a predetermined standard