(a) appropriate to the prevailing political or social circumstances (in early use not as a fixed collocation); /(b)/ spec. (orig. U.S., sometimes depreciative) conforming to a body of liberal or radical opinion, esp. on social matters, usually characterized by the advocacy of approved causes or views, and often by the rejection of language, behaviour, etc., considered discriminatory or offensive (cf. correct adj. Additions); abbreviated PC.
1793 J. Wilson in U.S. Rep. (U.S. Supreme Court) 2 (1798) 462 Sentiments and expressions of this inaccurate kind prevail in our..language… ‘The United States’, instead of the ‘People of the United States’, is the toast given. This is not politically correct.
1875 N.Y. Times 19 Dec. 2 The other ninety odd thousand charges are all true, and politically correct.
1934 J. Strachey Lit. & Dialectical Materialism 47 We are sometimes a little apt to pretend, to wish, to suggest that such writers [/sc./ Marxists] are necessarily better writers, because they are more politically correct, than are our fellow travelers.
1936 H. V. Morton In Steps of St. Paul vi. 211 ‘Galatians’, a term that was politically correct, embraced everyone under Roman rule.
1970 T. Cade Black Woman 73 A man cannot be politically correct and a chauvinist too.
1979 Economist 6 Jan. 17/2 His judgement that the time and place called for an attack on the quality and efficiency of the municipal government proved to be politically correct.
1987 Nation 6 June 769/3 Some readers are going to be disappointed by Poirier’s insistent effort to keep literature from becoming a weapon—he would say casualty—of the politically correct or incorrect.
2001 Guardian 25 Aug. i. 13/1 Teenage boys are at the least politically correct stage of their lives.