credentials and the credere family

Howdy.

I open this topic for several reasons:
- as a matter of fact, "credentials" belongs to the big family derived from the Latin "credere" which gave so many words in all of our European languages... but I'll get back to that point later
- first, I'd like to get your opinion about "credentials" that is a word I used a lot with American colleagues a few years ago: I'm sure about its meaning but I can't find this meaning in my dictionaries nor on a few Web sites I accessed

Hi Gérard,
Which meaning for 'credentials' did you use and in what context?

I only know the meaning the dictionary gives me : références ou papiers d'identité.

Hi Guilaine,

I lost my connection and two long posts!
I'm trying to write them again tonight