accrosvsancrésWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#23,743
“accros” frequency rank
#32,675
“ancrés” frequency rank
56418
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature accros ancrés
Definition Pluriel de accro. Masculin pluriel de ancré.

Where the eye mixes accros and ancrés

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. accros and ancrés follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (VCCCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

6 ch
accros
6 ch
ancrés

Why the eye confuses accros with ancrés

A purely visual mix-up. accros (\a.kʁo\) and ancrés (\ɑ̃.kʁe\) 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 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 56418, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

accros is recorded at frequency rank #23,743, classified as anadj, pronounced \a.kʁo\. ancrés is at rank #32,675, tagged as anadj, pronounced \ɑ̃.kʁe\.

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 56418, this pair ranks #121,220 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of accros vs ancrés

Shared letters: acrs. Private to "accros": o. Private to "ancrés": né.

"accros" · 6 letters · shape VCCCVC  ·  "ancrés" · 6 letters · shape VCCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • accros ← accors · accross · accrros · accrso · acrcos · acros · cacros

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "accros" for "ancrés" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\a.kʁo\ versus \ɑ̃.kʁe\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "accros" vs "ancrés" - which ranks higher?
"accros" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #23,743 in our French list, against #32,675 for "ancrés". 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 "accros" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "ancrés" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #121,220 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "accros" and "ancrés" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "anales vs ancrés". 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 #121,220 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