placebo
noun
Simple meaning
A dummy medicine containing no active ingredients.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
pluhseebohSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
pləˈsiboʊ
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
medicine
A dummy medicine containing no active ingredients; an inert treatment.
Roman CatholicismRoman Catholic Church
Vespers of the office for the dead
Roman Catholicism
The vespers sung in the office for the dead.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- C1 · Advanced (estimated)
- Frequency
- Moderately Common
- Formality
- Technical
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
Any effect that seems to be a consequence of administering a placebo.
A placebo used in experimental tests of a drug that has noticeable side effects.
Related Words
Connected to the same idea, not synonyms.
- dosenoun
- pillnoun
- acupuncturenoun
- diarrheanoun
- antidepressantnoun
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.