Accession

How to spell accession

9 letters · 3 syllables

The most common mistake is excession. The letters people get wrong are highlighted.

excession accession

What people typed instead

• excession3 people

How to pronounce accession

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does accession mean?

1. nounThe act of attaining or coming into a high office, rank, or throne.
2. nounThe formal act of joining a treaty, organisation, or alliance.
3. nounAn item newly added to a library, museum, or other collection.

Accession in a sentence

• The king's accession to the throne was marked by a national holiday.

• The country's accession to the trade bloc took nearly a decade to negotiate.

• The curator logged the painting as the museum's latest accession.

• Her accession to the role of chief executive surprised the board.

• Diplomats celebrated the new member's accession to the treaty.

• Each accession is given a unique number when it enters the archive.

Where does accession come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin accedere, which literally meant 'to go toward' or 'to approach', built from the prefix ad- 'to, toward' and the verb cedere 'to go, to yield, to move'. The Latin noun accessio described an approaching, an addition, or an increase, and English took the word up in the early 1400s, partly through French. The core idea of 'coming to' something explains the modern senses: a monarch comes to the throne, a country comes into a treaty, and a new object comes into a collection. The same cedere root sits inside a large family of English words, including 'proceed', 'recede', 'concede' and 'access', which is why the spelling keeps the double 'c' followed by the soft 'ss': the 'cc' belongs to the prefix-plus-root join, and the '-ssion' ending mirrors words like 'procession'. Remembering that it shares its skeleton with 'access' helps lock in the tricky double consonants.

How the word is built

• ac- (toward, a form of ad-)
• cess (from cedere: to go, to move)
• -ion (noun of action)