A person to whom a debt or some other obligation is due.
From Bouvier:
"He who has a right to require the fulfillment of an obligation or contract."
The United States Uniform Commercial Code defines the term as including:
"... a general creditor, a secured creditor, a lien creditor, and any representative of creditors, including an assignee for the benefit of creditors, a trustee in bankruptcy, a receiver in equity, and an executor or administrator of an insolvent debtor's or assignor's estate."
In Re Atlas Canning, Justice Drake wrote:
"Creditor, in its primary meaning, imports one to whom a debt is due, in a secondary meaning, one to whom money is owing but the period of payment has not arrived..."
REFERENCES:
- Re Atlas Canning Co., 5 BCR 661 (1897; British Columbia Supreme Court)
- United States Uniform Commercial Code, published, as of 24-JUNE-2008, at law.cornell.edu/ucc/