accordéonvsaccordesTell them apart

Which to use

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

#22,151
“accordéon” frequency rank
#42,715
“accordes” frequency rank
64866
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature accordéon accordes
Definition Instrument à vent, composé d’un soufflet permettant le déplacement de l’air et de touches permettant des changements de tonalité, le son est produit par un système d’anches libres. Il dispose de deux claviers : l’un pour le chant à main droite, l’autre pour l’accompagnement à main gauche. Pluriel de accorde.

Where the eye mixes accordéon and accordes

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence. accordéon runs 9 letters (VCCVCCVVC) against accordes's 8 (VCCVCCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

9 ch
accordéon
8 ch
accordes

Visual trap between accordéon and accordes

A purely visual mix-up. accordéon (\a.kɔʁ.de.ɔ̃\) and accordes (\a.kɔʁd\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 64866, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

accordéon is recorded at frequency rank #22,151, classified as anoun, pronounced \a.kɔʁ.de.ɔ̃\. accordes is at rank #42,715, tagged as anoun, pronounced \a.kɔʁd\.

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 64866, this pair ranks #74,987 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of accordéon vs accordes

Shared letters: acdor. Private to "accordéon": . Private to "accordes": es.

"accordéon" · 9 letters · shape VCCVCCVVC  ·  "accordes" · 8 letters · shape VCCVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • accordesaccodres · accorddes · accordess · accordse · accoreds · accorrdes · accrodes · acocrdes

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "accordéon" for "accordes" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\a.kɔʁ.de.ɔ̃\ versus \a.kɔʁd\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "accordéon" or "accordes" show up more?
"accordéon" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #22,151 in our French list, against #42,715 for "accordes". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "accordéon" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "accordes" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #74,987 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "accordéon" and "accordes" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "accordes vs accordons". 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 #74,987 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