Community nurses are uniquely positioned to witness the social realities that shape health, including poverty, homelessness, insecure housing, trauma, discrimination and exclusion. Working within people’s homes and communities provides insight into the experiences of populations facing severe and multiple disadvantage, including people experiencing homelessness, people seeking refuge, Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities, people who use drugs, and those with lived experience of the criminal justice system. While healthcare has traditionally focused on inclusion, there is growing recognition that equity requires more than inviting people into existing systems; it requires questioning whether those systems were designed to meet everyone’s needs in the first place.This article explores the relationship between language, health equity and community nursing practice and examines how commonly used healthcare terminology can unintentionally reinforce stigma, individualise responsibility and obscure the wider social determinants of health.