Paralympics
Americanplural noun
plural noun
Usage
What are the Paralympics? The Paralympics, formally called the Paralympic Games, are an international athletic competition featuring multiple sporting events between athletes with a range of bodily differences and disabilities. The event is modeled after the Olympic Games, featuring the world’s top athletes in their sports, with the top three finishers in each event being awarded medals: gold for first place, silver for second place, and bronze for third place. Like the Olympics, there are Winter and Summer versions of the Paralympics, and they are usually held after the corresponding Olympic event in the same city. The Winter Paralympics feature winter sports, including skiing, snowboarding, ice hockey, and many others. The Summer Paralympics feature traditionally warm weather and indoor sports, like track and field, swimming, and wheelchair basketball, among many others. Eligibility for and competition in the Paralympics is based on categories that involve bodily differences and different types of disabilities, including those related to muscle power and movement, range of movement, limb differences, visual impairment, and intellectual disabilities. Athletes who compete in the Paralympics can be called Paralympians.
Etymology
Origin of Paralympics
C20: parallel + Olympics
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Yet the Atlanta Paralympics mascot was dazzling, a glorious phoenix arising from its own ashes.
From Los Angeles Times • Jun. 6, 2026
That event will be followed by the longest Paralympic Games in history and the first Paralympics in L.A.
From Los Angeles Times • Jun. 4, 2026
The show was originally commissioned to run alongside the London 2012 Summer Paralympics, but was so popular with viewers it continued as a topical weekly show satirising the week's news.
From BBC • May 19, 2026
LA28 will have 14 million tickets available between the Olympics and Paralympics, which would break Paris 2024’s record of 12 million tickets sold.
From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 15, 2026
As Neil Simpson straddled a gate at the start of his slalom run on Sunday, it perhaps summed up just how tricky these Winter Paralympics have been for Great Britain.
From BBC • Mar. 15, 2026
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
