accèsvsaimesWhat's the difference?

Which to use

“accès” and “aimes” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#765
“accès” frequency rank
#1,941
“aimes” frequency rank
2706
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature accès aimes
Definition Action, endroit, ou facilité plus ou moins grande d’accéder dans un lieu, physique ou virtuel. Pluriel de aime.

Where the eye mixes accès and aimes

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

5 ch
accès
5 ch
aimes

Why the eye confuses accès with aimes

A purely visual mix-up. accès (\ak.sɛ\) and aimes (\ɛm\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 2706, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

accès is recorded at frequency rank #765, classified as anoun, pronounced \ak.sɛ\. aimes is at rank #1,941, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ɛm\.

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 2706, this pair ranks #435,629 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of accès vs aimes

Shared letters: as. Private to "accès": . Private to "aimes": eim.

"accès" · 5 letters · shape VCCVC  ·  "aimes" · 5 letters · shape VVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • aimesaiems · aimess · aimmes · aimse · iames

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "accès" and "aimes" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\ak.sɛ\ versus \ɛm\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "accès" or "aimes"?
"accès" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #765 in our French list, against #1,941 for "aimes". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Eye-level mix-up between "accès" and "aimes" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "accès" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "aimes" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #435,629 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "accès" and "aimes" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "aimes vs aves". 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 #435,629 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