accruvsaccruesWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#13,502
“accru” frequency rank
#32,657
“accrues” frequency rank
46159
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature accru accrues
Definition Rejeton produit par la racine. Pluriel de accrue.

Same sound, different letters: accru vs accrues

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 5 letters. accru runs 5 letters (VCCCV) against accrues's 7 (VCCCVVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
accru
7 ch
accrues

Ear matches; page differs - accru and accrues

This is the hard kind. accru and accrues are pronounced identically (\a.kʁy\) and both work as anoun. Neither the ear nor the grammar will rescue you; only the meaning does, so the glosses below are the whole decision. They differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “accru” sits inside “accrues”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 46159, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

accru is recorded at frequency rank #13,502, classified as anoun, pronounced \a.kʁy\. accrues is at rank #32,657, 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 46159, this pair ranks #197,127 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of accru vs accrues

Shared letters: acru. Private to "accru": -. Private to "accrues": es.

"accru" · 5 letters · shape VCCCV  ·  "accrues" · 7 letters · shape VCCCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • accruaccrru · accur · acrcu · acru · cacru
  • accruesaccreus · accrrues · accruess · accruse · accures · acrcues · acrues · cacrues

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "accru" and "accrues" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are pronounced the same (\a.kʁy\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.
Frequency check: "accru" vs "accrues" - which ranks higher?
"accru" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #13,502 in our French list, against #32,657 for "accrues". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Sound matches; spelling doesn't. Use the exits below to lock the right form or check a cousin pair.

  • Full dictionary entry for "accru" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "accrues" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #197,127 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "accru" and "accrues" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "accordes vs accrues". 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 #197,127 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