Other forms: accessed, accessing, accesses
Access is the right or the means to get in, or to use something. A key, a password, or permission from somebody who has one.
The word covers doors and data equally, so wheelchair access and access to the files are both ordinary uses. Law uses it precisely for a parent's right to see a child. As a verb it is now standard, though older writers disliked it, and accessing a file is what everybody says. The adjective accessible means both reachable and easy to understand, and accessibility covers the whole field of making things usable by disabled people.
1nounaccessThe right or opportunity to enter or use something.~95%
“Only two people have access to the safe.”
2verbobtainTo obtain or make use of something, especially data.~5%
“You can access the records from home.”
Shares are an estimate: a language model read 19 sentences found in the wild and placed 19 of them on a sense — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.
Access is a going-towards, from Latin accēdō, made of ad, to, and cēdō, to move. It reached English through French meaning an attack or an onslaught, a rush at something rather than permission to enter.
Latin
accessus
Middle French
acces — attack, onslaught
Middle English
accesse
English, today
access
Built from
From Middle English accesse, acces, borrowed from Middle French acces (“attack, onslaught”) or from its source Latin accessus, perfect passive participle of accēdō (“approach; accede”), from ad (“to, toward, at”) + cēdō (“move, yield”). a doublet of accessus. First attested in the early 14th century. The sense "entrance" was first attested about 1380.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA