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access

ac·cess/ˈækˌsɛs/noun, verb

access is spelled A-C-C-E-S-S, 2 syllables: ac·cess. The wrong spelling people search most is acess: about 2,940 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 14 of all searches for the word. Access is a noun meaning “A way or means of approaching or entering; an entrance; a passage”. The plural of access is accesses.

How many letters and syllables are in access?

Letters6: A-C-C-E-S-S
Syllables2: ac·cess
In writing112 times per million words; the 951st most frequent word form
Wrong spellings searched1; the most searched, acess, about 2,940 Bing searches a month (all of them)

Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026).

How do you spell access?

Access is spelled A-C-C-E-S-S. One wrong spelling is searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 14 of the searches for access in either form.

accessthe right spelling37,030 searches a month
acessa missing c2,940 searches a month

Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026). Wrong spellings are taken from Wiktionary entries tagged "misspelling" and its obsolete or nonstandard forms, Wikipedia's Lists of common misspellings and the codespell dictionary, then measured. The proofreader's marks show the change that corrects each one.

How common is access?

Access appears 112 times per million words in written English, the 951st most frequent word form in the list.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

How do you pronounce access?

  • UK /ˈæksɛs/
  • US /ˈækˌsɛs/

As a verb (“To gain or obtain access to”): /ˈæksɛs/, /əkˈsɛs/, /ˈækˌsɛs/.

Access has 2 syllables, split ac·cess in writing.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-access.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Forms of access

  • accesses plural, present, singular, he/she/it
  • accessing participle, present
  • accessed participle, past

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What does access mean?

The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).

noun

  1. 1

    A way or means of approaching or entering; an entrance; a passage.

    The door provides access to the premises.

  2. 2

    The act of approaching or entering; an advance.

    They gained access to the basement from the stairs.

  3. 3

    The right or ability of approaching or entering; admittance; admission; accessibility.

    Staff prevent unauthorized access to the building.

  4. 4

    The quality of being easy to approach or enter.

    ease of access

  5. 5

    Admission to sexual intercourse.

  6. 6

    archaicAn increase by addition; accession.

    an access of territory

  7. 7

    An onset, attack, or fit of disease; an ague fit.

  8. 8

    An outburst of an emotion; a paroxysm; a fit of passion.

    It appears that, about the middle of the fourth century of the Christian Era, the Germans in the Roman service started the new practice of retaining their native names; and this change of etiquette, which seems to have been abrupt, points t

verb

  1. 1

    To gain or obtain access to.

  2. 2

    To have access to (data).

    I can't access most of the data on the computer without a password.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How do you abbreviate access?

Wiktionary records one abbreviation of access: ABO.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

Access in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Frenchaccès (way or means of approaching), approche, entrée (act of approaching or entering), accéder, avoir accès (to gain or obtain access to)
GermanZugang, Eingang (way or means of approaching), Zutritt (right or ability of approaching or entering), Ausbruch (outburst of an emotion), Zugang haben, zugreifen (computing: to have access to (data))
Portugueseacesso (way or means of approaching), aceder, acessar (to gain or obtain access to)
Spanishacceso (way or means of approaching), acceder, accesar (to gain or obtain access to)

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does access come from?

From Middle English accesse, acces, borrowed from Middle French acces (“attack, onslaught”) or from its source Latin accessus, perfect passive participle of accēdō (“approach; accede”), from ad (“to, toward, at”) + cēdō (“move, yield”). Doublet of accessus. First attested in the early 14th century. The sense "entrance" was first attested about 1380.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What to look up after access