accuservsaccusesTell them apart

Which to use

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

#7,925
“accuser” frequency rank
#40,579
“accuses” frequency rank
48504
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature accuser accuses
Definition Déférer à la justice quelqu’un comme coupable d’un délit, d’un crime. Deuxième personne du singulier de l’indicatif présent du verbe accuser.

Where the eye mixes accuser and accuses

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence.

7 ch
accuser
7 ch
accuses

Why the eye confuses accuser with accuses

A purely visual mix-up. accuser (\a.ky.ze\) and accuses (\a.kyz\) 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 a single letter - r in “accuser” becomes s in “accuses”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 48504, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

accuser is recorded at frequency rank #7,925, classified as averb, pronounced \a.ky.ze\. accuses is at rank #40,579, tagged as averb, pronounced \a.kyz\.

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 48504, this pair ranks #178,379 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of accuser vs accuses

Shared letters: acesu. Private to "accuser": r. Private to "accuses": -.

"accuser" · 7 letters · shape VCCVCVC  ·  "accuses" · 7 letters · shape VCCVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • accuseraccsuer · accuesr · accuserr · accusre · accusser · acucser · cacuser
  • accusesaccsues · accuess · accusess · accusse · accusses · acucses · acuses · cacuses

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "accuser" for "accuses" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\a.ky.ze\ versus \a.kyz\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "accuser" or "accuses"?
"accuser" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #7,925 in our French list, against #40,579 for "accuses". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "accuser" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "accuses" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #178,379 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "accuser" and "accuses" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "accrues vs accuses". 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 #178,379 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