accolévsaccrueConfusable pair

Quick tell: accolé is a adjective, accrue is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“accolé” is an adjective and “accrue” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#43,244
“accolé” frequency rank
#9,775
“accrue” frequency rank
53019
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature accolé accrue
Definition Se dit d’un meuble attenant et joint à un autre meuble. Accroissement.

Where the eye mixes accolé and accrue

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. accolé (VCCVCV) and accrue (VCCCVV) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

6 ch
accolé
6 ch
accrue

Look-alike desk: accolé vs accrue

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: accolé is \a.kɔ.le\ while accrue is \a.kʁy\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 53019, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

accolé is recorded at frequency rank #43,244, classified as anadj, pronounced \a.kɔ.le\. accrue is at rank #9,775, tagged as anoun, pronounced \a.kʁy\.

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 53019, this pair ranks #143,641 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of accolé vs accrue

Shared letters: ac. Private to "accolé": loé. Private to "accrue": eru.

"accolé" · 6 letters · shape VCCVCV  ·  "accrue" · 6 letters · shape VCCCVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • accrue ← accreu · accrrue · accure · acrcue · acrue · cacrue

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "accolé" for "accrue" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "accolé" is an adjective and "accrue" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "accolé" or "accrue"?
"accrue" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #9,775 in our French list, against #43,244 for "accolé". 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 "accolé" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "accrue" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #143,641 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "accolé" and "accrue" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "accablé vs accolé". 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 #143,641 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