Placebo Meaning
/pləˈsiː.bəʊ/Definition, CEFR level C1, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
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Definition
nounA dummy medicine containing no active ingredients; an inert treatment.
nounThe vespers sung in the office for the dead.
Sentence Examples
It's just a placebo.
It's only a placebo.
Both nocebo and placebo effects are presumably psychogenic.
CEFR Practice Quiz
The doctor gave a sugar pill, a ____, to see if it would make the patient feel better.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The clinical trial used a ____ to ensure that neither the patients nor the doctors knew who received the real drug.
Word Origin & History
Inherited from Middle English placebo, borrowed from Latin placēbō (“I will please”), the first-person singular future active indicative of placeō (“to please”).
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"The acid test, I thought, was whether homeopathic remedies behave differently from placebos when submitted to clinical trials."
— 2010 February 22, Edzard Ernst, “No to homeopathy placebo”, in The Guardian:
"The trials overall showed some but limited effectiveness, and in one of the largest and longest trials, the placebo performed better in treating spasticity, pain and bladder dysfunction, Dr. Bowling wrote."
— 2021 March 8, Jane E. Brody, “Medical Marijuana Is Not Regulated as Most Medicines Are”, in The New York Times:
"There the placebo, the office for the dead, was sung, and a vigil kept throughout the night."
— 2011, Thomas Penn, Winter King, Penguin, published 2012, page 349:
Explore More C1 Vocabulary Words
CEFR Practice Quiz
The doctor gave a sugar pill, a ____, to see if it would make the patient feel better.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The clinical trial used a ____ to ensure that neither the patients nor the doctors knew who received the real drug.