Word.ws English Dictionary

people-first language

people-first language noun: language that refers to people with disabilities by saying people first, for example "people with disabilities", instead of adjectives ("disabled people") and copulas ("he is disabled") that would give primacy to the disability.

Noun

people-first language (uncountable)

  1. Language that refers to people with disabilities by saying people first, for example "people with disabilities", instead of adjectives ("disabled people") and copulas ("he is disabled") that would give primacy to the disability.
    • People with disabilities and professionals in the human services field are promoting the use of "people first" language, which refers to the person first and the disability second: "Americans with disabilities," for example, rather than "disabled Americans".1988. Letter to the editor, BusinessWeek. Issue 3059

Origin of people-first language

The term first appears in 1988, used by advocacy groups in the United States.

Questions about people-first language

What does people-first language mean?
People-first language means language that refers to people with disabilities by saying people first, for example "people with disabilities", instead of adjectives ("disabled people") and copulas ("he is disabled") that would give primacy to the disability.
What part of speech is people-first language?
People-first language is a noun.

Words near people-first language in the dictionary

  1. people's warrior
  2. people's warriors
  3. people's wars
  4. people-carrier
  5. people-carriers
  6. people-first language
  7. people-people
  8. people-person
  9. people-persons
  10. people-pleaser
  11. people-pleasers

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: people-first language (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “people-first language.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/people-first_language. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.