accident
ac·cid·ent/ˈæk.sə.dənt/noun, adjective
accident is spelled A-C-C-I-D-E-N-T, 3 syllables: ac·cid·ent. The wrong spelling people search most is acident: about 100 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 76 of all searches for the word. Accident is a noun meaning “An unexpected event with negative consequences occurring without the intention of the one suffering the…”. The plural of accident is accidents.
How many letters and syllables are in accident?
| Letters | 8: A-C-C-I-D-E-N-T |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 3: ac·cid·ent |
| In writing | 51 times per million words; the 1,993rd most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 2; the most searched, acident, about 100 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 accident?
Accident is spelled A-C-C-I-D-E-N-T. 2 wrong spellings are searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 69 of the searches for accident in either form.
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 accident?
Accident appears 51 times per million words in written English, the 1,993rd 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 accident?
- UK /ˈæk.sɪ.dənt/
- US /ˈæk.sə.dənt/
- US /ˈæk.sɪ.dənt/
Accident has 3 syllables, split ac·cid·ent in writing.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-accident.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of accident
- accidents plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does accident mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
An unexpected event with negative consequences occurring without the intention of the one suffering the consequences, and (in the strict sense) not directly caused by humans.
to die by an accident such as an act of God
- 2
casus; such unforeseen, extraordinary, extraneous interference as is out of the range of ordinary calculation.
- 3
A collision or crash of a vehicle, aircraft, or other form of transportation that causes damage to the transportation involved; and sometimes injury or death to the transportation's occupants or bystanders in close proximity. (but see Usage notes)
There was a huge accident on I5 involving 15 automobiles.
- 4
Any chance event.
- 5
Chance; random chance.
- 6
Any property, fact, or relation that is the result of chance or is nonessential or nonsubstantive.
Beauty is an accident.
- 7
A property attached to a word, but not essential to it, such as gender, number, or case.
An adjective, so called because adjectitious, or added to a substantive, denotes some quality or accident of the substantive to which it is joined […]
- 8
An instance of incontinence.
adjective
- 1
Designating any form of transportation involved in an accident.
The NTSB report revealed that the accident airplane was a Cessna 172.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Accident in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | accident |
| German | Unfall , Zufall , Malheur |
| Portuguese | acidente , sinistro |
| Spanish | accidente |
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 accident come from?
First attested in the late 14th century. From Middle English accident, from Old French accident, from Latin accidēns, present active participle of accidō (“happen”); from ad (“to”) + cadō (“fall”). See cadence, case.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).