placebo
Medicine/Medical, Pharmacology. : Compare nocebo (def. 1).
a substance having no pharmacological effect but given merely to satisfy a patient who supposes it to be a medicine.
a substance having no pharmacological effect but administered as a control in testing experimentally or clinically the efficacy of a biologically active preparation.
Roman Catholic Church. the vespers of the office for the dead: so called from the initial word of the first antiphon, taken from Psalm 114:9 of the Vulgate.
Origin of placebo
1Words Nearby placebo
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024
How to use placebo in a sentence
Proof of efficacy requires controlled studies in which some patients get plasma and others get a placebo.
The US just approved the use of plasma from covid-19 survivors as a treatment | Antonio Regalado | August 24, 2020 | MIT Technology ReviewIf members of the placebo group contract covid-19 and members of the vaccinated group don’t, that indicates success.
They vaccinated volunteers and then, 24 hours later, gave them either the experimental antibody drug or a placebo.
A large number of people are given either the vaccine or a placebo and then sent back to live their lives, assuming that some of them, at some point, will be exposed to the virus.
Some Volunteers Want To Be Infected With Coronavirus To Help Find A Vaccine. But It Isn’t That Simple. | Kaleigh Rogers (kaleigh.rogers@fivethirtyeight.com) | August 6, 2020 | FiveThirtyEightMice treated with a placebo drug or Brd4 inhibitor alone fared worse.
These cells slow an immune response. Derailing them could help fight tumors | Esther Landhuis | July 10, 2020 | Science News
There is some scientific merit to some alternative modalities, such as the well-documented placebo effect.
After the surgery he discovered that he had simply drunk fruit juice with added sugar and he had been given a placebo.
The Week in Death: Alexander Shulgrin, Who Synthesized the Drug Ecstasy | The Telegraph | June 7, 2014 | THE DAILY BEASTNobody conceived of a thing like the placebo effect or researcher bias —none of these notions had been worked out yet.
Following Tuberculosis From Death Sentence to Cure | Tessa Miller | April 16, 2014 | THE DAILY BEASTThose who had received the actual drug reported better levels of self-satisfaction than the unfortunates who just got the placebo.
Kythera Helps You Melt Your Double Chin, No Diet or Surgery Required | Daniel Gross | September 17, 2013 | THE DAILY BEASTThe second is the placebo effect, which will often cause anything presented as medication to “work.”
It is a milder form of this same method to give what the learned faculty term a placebo.
The Humbugs of the World | P. T. BarnumWe are interested in what makes the placebo act as effectively as the true medication.
A Practical Guide to Self-Hypnosis | Melvin PowersThis is a last phase of the metaphysical polity, and is only a kind of placebo.
Hence the complacent brother in the Marchant's Tale is called placebo.'
Chaucer's Works, Volume 5 (of 7) -- Notes to the Canterbury Tales | Geoffrey ChaucerWe'll call this the placebo criticism and will come back to it, too, in a moment.
When You Don't Know Where to Turn | Steven J. Bartlett
British Dictionary definitions for placebo
/ (pləˈsiːbəʊ) /
med an inactive substance or other sham form of therapy administered to a patient usually to compare its effects with those of a real drug or treatment, but sometimes for the psychological benefit to the patient through his believing he is receiving treatment: See also control group, placebo effect
something said or done to please or humour another
RC Church a traditional name for the vespers of the office for the dead
Origin of placebo
1Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Scientific definitions for placebo
[ plə-sē′bō ]
A substance containing no medication and prescribed to reinforce a patient's expectation of getting well or used as a control in a clinical research trial to determine the effectiveness of a potential new drug.
The American Heritage® Science Dictionary Copyright © 2011. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
Cultural definitions for placebo
[ (pluh-see-boh) ]
A substance containing no active drug, administered to a patient participating in a medical experiment as a control.
Notes for placebo
The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
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