The most common and most likely answer to this crossword clue is the 9 letter word VALUATION
I've seen this crossword clue in Financial Times
V
A
L
U
A
T
I
O
N
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The cryptic/wordplay part
In cryptic crossword there's often an wordplay/cryptic part as well.This part involves a more complex hint, such as an anagram, homophone, hidden word, etc.
Sadly, We don't have an explanation for this specific crossword clue yet.
What does VALUATION mean?
VALUATION noun- An estimation of something's worth.
- The process of estimating the value of a financial asset or liability.
- (propositional logic, model theory) An assignment of truth values to propositional variables, with a corresponding assignment of truth values to all propositional formulas with those variables (obtained through the recursive application of truth-valued functions corresponding to the logical connectives making up those formulas).
- (first-order logic, model theory) A structure, and the corresponding assignment of a truth value to each sentence in the language for that structure.
- A measure of size or multiplicity.
- (measure theory, domain theory) A map from the class of open sets of a topological space to the set of positive real numbers including infinity.