What does accordance mean?
Accordance is a formal noun denoting agreement or conformity — the state of acting in harmony with a rule, law, standard, or expectation. In modern English it appears almost exclusively in the phrase 'in accordance with', which signals that an action follows established requirements: documents are filed 'in accordance with regulations', payments are made 'in accordance with the contract', and procedures are carried out 'in accordance with best practice'. Because of this, the word carries a tone of officialdom and precision, making it a staple of legal, administrative, and business writing rather than casual conversation. Its roots lie in the Latin word cord-, meaning 'heart', via Old French acorder, 'to agree' — a reminder that to be in accordance with something originally meant to be of one heart with it. A related but distinct word, concordance, refers more broadly to mutual agreement or to an index of words in a text.
nounAgreement or conformity with something, such as a rule, law, or instruction; the state of being in harmony with what is required or expected.
- Conformity or compliance with a rule, law, standard, or set of instructions.
- Agreement or harmony between people, actions, or things.
"The building was demolished in accordance with local safety regulations."
"The refund was issued in accordance with the company's returns policy."
"The two nations acted in accordance with their long-standing treaty obligations."
Rarely pluralised; the plural is grammatically valid but virtually unused because the word normally appears in the fixed singular phrase 'in accordance with'.
"The auditor noted several accordances between the report and the underlying records."
Nearly every legal document you've ever signed contains 'in accordance with' — it's one of the most quietly ubiquitous phrases in formal English.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of accordance
Accordance derives from the Old French verb acorder, meaning 'to agree' or 'to bring into harmony', which itself comes from Vulgar Latin *accordare, formed from Latin ad- ('to, toward') plus cor/cordis ('heart'). The underlying image is literal: to accord is to be 'of one heart' with someone or something. English borrowed the noun in the late medieval period, and it settled into its modern role as a marker of conformity with rules and standards.
How accordance is actually used
Formal register; overwhelmingly used in the fixed phrase 'in accordance with'. Rarely used outside this construction in everyday speech. The second sense (general agreement/harmony) is now much less common than the compliance sense.
Easily confused with accordance
'According' is a verb form or preposition-like phrase ('according to') meaning on the authority of, while 'accordance' is a noun meaning agreement or conformity.
'Concordance' means agreement between things or an alphabetical index of words in a text, whereas 'accordance' refers to conformity with rules or expectations.