accèdentvsaccidentTell them apart

Quick tell: accèdent is a verb, accident is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“accèdent” is a verb and “accident” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#28,812
“accèdent” frequency rank
#1,407
“accident” frequency rank
30219
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature accèdent accident
Definition Troisième personne du pluriel de l’indicatif présent du verbe accéder. Événement inattendu qui survient par hasard.

Where the eye mixes accèdent and accident

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 7 letters in sequence. accèdent and accident follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (VCCVCVCC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

8 ch
accèdent
8 ch
accident

Why the eye confuses accèdent with accident

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: accèdent is \ak.sɛd\ while accident is \ak.si.dɑ̃\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by a single letter - è in “accèdent” becomes i in “accident”, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 30219, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

accèdent is recorded at frequency rank #28,812, classified as averb, pronounced \ak.sɛd\. accident is at rank #1,407, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ak.si.dɑ̃\.

Glosses for this pair are partially populated in our dataset, but the full side-by-side definitions above should still guide you to the right choice.

With a confusion score of 30219, this pair ranks #311,783 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of accèdent vs accident

Shared letters: acdent. Private to "accèdent": è. Private to "accident": i.

"accèdent" · 8 letters · shape VCCVCVCC  ·  "accident" · 8 letters · shape VCCVCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • accident ← accdient · acciddent · accidennt · accidentt · accidetn · accidnet · acciednt · acicdent

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "accèdent" and "accident" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "accèdent" is a verb and "accident" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "accèdent" or "accident"?
"accident" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,407 in our French list, against #28,812 for "accèdent". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "accèdent" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "accident" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #311,783 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "accèdent" and "accident" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "accédant vs accèdent". Nearby pair
  • Recorded mistypes exist for at least one side of this pair, useful when a spell-checker or OCR lands on the wrong form. See mistypes

Confusion rank #311,783 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list