rat·ing¹ / ˈrāting/ • n. a classification or ranking of someone or something based on a comparative assessment of their quality, standard, or performance: the hotel regained its five-star rating. ∎  (ratings) the estimated audience size of a particular television or radio program: the soap's ratings have recently picked up. ∎  the value of a property or condition that is claimed to be standard, optimal, or limiting for a substance, material, or item of equipment: fuel with a low octane rating. ∎  any of the classes into which racing yachts are assigned according to dimensions.rat·ing² • n. dated an angry reprimand.

rating, rating scales Rating scales require respondents to make a judgement of absolute value—as, for example, in the case of a university professor grading student assignments according to their scholarly excellence. Typically, in sociological research, respondents are asked, for example, to indicate the prestige of different occupations on a scale from (say) one to ten; or, similarly, to indicate how enthusiastic or unenthusiastic they are about a range of government policies, on a (perhaps five-point) scale ranging from ‘entirely support’ at one extreme, to ‘entirely oppose’ at the other (with intermediate ratings of ‘mildly support’, ‘disinterested’, and ‘mildly oppose’). See also LIKERT SCALE; RANKING.