Meaning & use
placebo
Last updated
Meanings
nouncountablemedical
A harmless substance given as if it were real medicine, often to test whether a new treatment truly works.
Grammar: A countable noun: a placebo, two placebos.
Patterns
- given a placebo
- placebo group
Half of the volunteers received the drug and half received a placebo.
The pill turned out to be a placebo containing only sugar.
Neither the doctors nor the patients knew who had the placebo.
nouncountablefigurative
Something that makes a person feel better only because they believe it will, not because it has any real effect.
Grammar: Used figuratively, often with 'a': the tour was a placebo for his worries.
Patterns
- a placebo for something
The new rules were just a placebo to calm the public.
For some people, checking the weather app is a placebo that eases anxiety.
The extra security check felt like a placebo rather than real protection.
Word forms
| plural | placebos |
|---|
Common combinations
- placebo effect
- The placebo effect can make people feel better even without medicine.
- placebo group
- The placebo group reported no change in symptoms.
- placebo-controlled trial
- The drug passed a placebo-controlled trial.
- take a placebo
- Some volunteers unknowingly take a placebo.
- pure placebo
- The cure was a pure placebo.
Synonyms and how they differ
- dummy pill
- Plain, everyday wording for a fake pill, while placebo is the technical term used in research.
- sugar pill
- Names a specific kind of placebo and has a casual, slightly humorous tone.
- sham
- Applies to a fake treatment of any kind, such as sham surgery, and carries a negative flavor.
Opposites
Word family
- placebo effect noun
- improvement caused by belief in a treatment
- nocebo noun
- a harmless substance that causes side effects because the person expects harm
- placebo-controlled adjective
- tested against a placebo
Commonly confused: placebo or palliative? placebo or plebeian?
placebo vs palliative
A palliative eases symptoms without curing the disease; a placebo has no active ingredient at all.
placebo vs plebeian
'Plebeian' means common or low-class; it sounds a little like placebo but is unrelated.
Practice
In a drug trial, patients in the control group often receive a ___.
Choose one answer.
A placebo looks like the real treatment but has no active ingredient, so it lets researchers compare results. A palliative still treats symptoms.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “placebo”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.