placebo

CEFRC1

/pləˈsiː.bəʊ/

noun

Türkçe translations

Translating…

In plain English

  1. 01

    noun

    A treatment with no active medicine, used as a comparison.

  2. 02

    noun

    Extra detail

    The vespers sung in the office for the dead.

Examples

  • Both nocebo and placebo effects are presumably psychogenic.

  • It's just a placebo.

At a glance

Sits at C1 on the CEFR scale

Senses
3
Parts of speech
1
Citations
3

Also pronounced

  • /pləˈsi.boʊ/

Deep Dive

noun

Extra meaning

  1. A dummy medicine containing no active ingredients; an inert treatment.

More examples

In context

  • It's only a placebo.

  • The acid test, I thought, was whether homeopathic remedies behave differently from placebos when submitted to clinical trials.

  • 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.

Quick test

Two questions on this entry. Nothing is scored.

Question 1 · Quick check

The doctor gave a sugar pill, a blank, to see if it would make the patient feel better.

Practise this properly in the app, where the word comes back before you forget it.

Nearby

Origin

noun

Inherited from Middle English placebo, borrowed from Latin placēbō (“I will please”), the first-person singular future active indicative of placeō (“to please”).