1. The right to enter
   "Her connections gave her access to the most exclusive circles";
   - entrée, accession, admission, admittance
    
2. The right to obtain or make use of or take advantage of something (as services or membership)
   "The membership card grants access to exclusive club facilities"
    
3. The act of approaching or entering
   "he gained access to the building"
    
4. A way of entering or leaving
   "he took a wrong turn on the access to the bridge";
   - approach
    
5. (computing) the operation of reading or writing stored information
   "The computer's performance slowed due to frequent memory access";
   - memory access
    
6. A code (a series of characters or digits) that must be entered in some way (typed or dialed or spoken) to get the use of something (a telephone line or a computer or a local area network etc.)
   "She forgot her access code and couldn't log into the system";
   - access code

1. Reach or gain access to
   "How does one access the attic in this house?";
   - get at
    
2. (computing) obtain or retrieve from a storage device; as of information on a computer
   "She accessed the files from the remote server"; "The program accesses the database to retrieve user information"

Derived forms: accessing, accesses, accessed

Type of: approach, approaching, arrive at, at hand, attain, close at hand, code, coming, find, gain, hit, imminent, impendent, impending, make, operation, reach, recover, regain, retrieve, right, way

Encyclopedia: Access, IEEE