accruevsaccruesWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#9,775
“accrue” frequency rank
#32,657
“accrues” frequency rank
42432
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature accrue accrues
Definition Accroissement. Pluriel de accrue.

Same sound, different letters: accrue vs accrues

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 6 letters. accrue runs 6 letters (VCCCVV) against accrues's 7 (VCCCVVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
accrue
7 ch
accrues

Homophone desk: accrue vs accrues

This is the hard kind. accrue 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 1 extra letter(s) - “accrue” sits inside “accrues”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 42432, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

accrue is recorded at frequency rank #9,775, 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 42432, this pair ranks #225,638 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of accrue vs accrues

Shared letters: aceru. Private to "accrue": -. Private to "accrues": s.

"accrue" · 6 letters · shape VCCCVV  ·  "accrues" · 7 letters · shape VCCCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • accrue ← accreu · accrrue · accure · acrcue · acrue · cacrue
  • accrues ← accreus · accrrues · accruess · accruse · accures · acrcues · acrues · cacrues

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "accrue" 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: "accrue" vs "accrues" - which ranks higher?
"accrue" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #9,775 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

"accrue" and "accrues" share a sound, keep the gloss open, then jump to the headword or a nearby trap.

  • Full dictionary entry for "accrue" 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 #225,638 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "accrue" 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 #225,638 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