Accessories

How to spell accessories

11 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce accessories

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does accessories mean?

1. nounAdditional items that are not essential but add to the usefulness, appearance, or completeness of something.
2. nounPeople who help someone commit a crime without being the main offender.

Accessories in a sentence

• The phone case and screen protector were sold as accessories at the till.

• Two accessories to the robbery were charged for driving the getaway car.

• She kept her scarves, belts, and other accessories in a drawer by the mirror.

• Prosecutors argued that the lookouts acted as accessories before the fact.

Where does accessories come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin verb accedere, meaning 'to approach' or 'to go toward', formed from the prefix ad- ('to') and the verb cedere ('to go' or 'to yield'). From accedere came the noun accessus, the act of approaching or an addition, and medieval Latin produced accessorius for something that is added on or comes along with a main thing. English took it in during the 1400s, at first largely in the legal sense of a person who assists in a crime without being the chief offender, and only later in the everyday sense of supplementary items. The same cedere root powers a whole family of English words such as 'access', 'proceed', 'recede' and 'concede', which is a useful reminder that the spelling keeps the double c and double s: the cc belongs to ac- meeting cess, and the ss belongs to cess itself. Holding onto that ac-cess-ory structure is the cleanest way to avoid dropping a letter.

How the word is built

• ac- (from ad-: to, toward)
• cess (from cedere: to go, approach)
• -ory (forming a thing that goes with)
• -ies (plural)