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"Reserved words" are words and symbols that have a specific meaning to Microsoft Access or to the Microsoft Jet database engine. If you use a reserved word or symbol to name a field, object, or variable, Access will display an error message. For example:

The wizard was unable to preview your report, possibly because a table needed by your report is exclusively locked.

If a reserved word is already in use, you can avoid error messages by surrounding the reference with brackets ([ ]).

To avoid using a reserved word or symbol in the future, see List of Access reserved words and symbols.

As with the list of Access reserved words, there are reserved words that have specific meaning when working in the SQL view (SQL view: A window that displays the SQL statement for the current query or that is used to create an SQL-specific query (union, pass-through, or data definition). When you create a query in Design view, Access constructs the SQL equivalent in SQL view.) of a query or with Microsoft SQL Server™.

For a complete list of Jet SQL reserved words that you can use in the SQL view of a query, see List of Jet SQL reserved words. For a complete list of T-SQL reserved words that you can use when working with SQL Server, see List of T-SQL reserved words.