accessvsaccusesWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#18,105
“access” frequency rank
#40,579
“accuses” frequency rank
58684
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature access accuses
Definition Accès. Deuxième personne du singulier de l’indicatif présent du verbe accuser.

Where the eye mixes access and accuses

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence.

6 ch
access
7 ch
accuses

Visual trap between access and accuses

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: access is \ˈæk.sɛs\ while accuses is \a.kyz\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 58684, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

access is recorded at frequency rank #18,105, classified as anoun, pronounced \ˈæk.sɛs\. accuses is at rank #40,579, tagged as averb, pronounced \a.kyz\.

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 58684, this pair ranks #107,549 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of access vs accuses

Shared letters: aces. Private to "access": -. Private to "accuses": u.

"access" · 6 letters · shape VCCVCC  ·  "accuses" · 7 letters · shape VCCVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • accessaccses · acecss · acess · cacess
  • accusesaccsues · accuess · accusess · accusse · accusses · acucses · acuses · cacuses

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "access" for "accuses" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "access" is a noun and "accuses" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "access" vs "accuses" - which ranks higher?
"access" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #18,105 in our French list, against #40,579 for "accuses". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "access" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "accuses" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #107,549 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "access" and "accuses" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "accrues vs accuses". 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 #107,549 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