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placebo

[pluh-see-boh for 1; plah-chey-boh for 2]

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noun, plural -bos, -boes.

Medicine/Medical, Pharmacology.

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:
1175–1225 for def. 2; 1775–85 for def. 1; Middle English < Latin placēbō I shall be pleasing, acceptable

Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2012.
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Placebo is an LSAT word you need to know.

So is obversion. Does it mean:

the action of resisting, or combating; a person or group of people opposing, criticizing, or protesting something

an act or instance of obverting, or turning something around

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Example Sentences

Some swallowed echinacea for a week beforehand, others a placebo.

And, of course, the placebo effect in medicine is well established.

Perhaps that explains why placebo research focuses on suggestive healing rather than suggestive harming.

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Some swallowed echinacea for a week beforehand, others a placebo.

And, of course, the placebo effect in medicine is well established.

Perhaps that explains why placebo research focuses on suggestive healing rather than suggestive harming.

New study links expectations of rewards to placebo effect.

That's probably an exaggeration, or an example of the placebo effect.

The study was a rare examination of the placebo effect of surgery.

Episode in which they've run out of morphine, and have to rely on the placebo effect on wounded soldiers.

The general consensus from my colleagues was they had a placebo effect but little more.

The placebo effect is notoriously difficult to quantify.

But one of the placebo days also happened to fall on a day of widespread torrential downpours.

Only the higher of two doses provided a statistically significant improvement in lupus symptoms compared with a placebo.

Those who took the drug were able to fall asleep more quickly and spend more time asleep than those who had the placebo.

These popular antidepressants are effective-but their function arises mainly from the placebo effect.

In each study, subjects will get doses of either tenofovir or a placebo.

In a trial, there were more deaths and serious infections among those who received the drug compared with those on a placebo.

For comparison, each patient also took a placebo tablet for three months, without being told which was which.

The women who offered the deal were given either testosterone or a placebo.

Those given the drug came back into themselves, while those who took the placebo did not.

Talk therapy by itself was no better than the placebo.

Half of the offenders received daily nutritional supplements, and the rest placebo pills.

John's wort is no more effective at treating moderately severe depression than a placebo is, according to a new study.

In clinical trials it extended the lives of patients about four months compared with a placebo.

Most folk cures, as the authors admit, have little value beyond a placebo effect.

In neither of the double-blind studies did patients receiving the experimental drug live longer than patients receiving placebo.

Another study suggested a higher risk of precancerous polyps among users of folic acid compared with those in a placebo group.

Apparently the airline had been handing out vouchers as a sort of placebo to get people out of their way.

Say you've performed a scientific experiment testing a new heart attack drug against a placebo.

One group of volunteers was asked to take a dietary supplement, the other group was told they were getting a placebo.

And those patients who receive a placebo treatment come away with the same results.

It does indeed, harness the power of the placebo effect, but it is effective.

On one end of the spectrum would be the placebo effect.

Fear of receiving a placebo is one such misconception.

Different studies of the placebo effect report wildly different results.

And the folded paper cootie catchers do nothing but induce a placebo effect in affected persons.

It's as if the placebo effect is somehow getting stronger.

Only if the antibiotic group healed faster than the placebo group could you conclude that the antibiotic caused the improvement.

These require a good, hard yank to snap them apart, presumably an adequate placebo for the fulfilling fracture.

In a drug study, an equal response in the treatment and placebo groups would prove the drug does not work, she says.

What you are describing is the placebo effectnothing new and it does well with the healing process in general.

In several studies, for example, women on a placebo gained as much weight as those on contraceptives.

Roughly the same number of patients were given placebo pills.

But larger clinically controlled trials are needed to prove that it is better than a placebo.

Patients told they were getting a placebo still reported improvements at a much higher rate than patients who were not treated.

These require a good, hard yank to snap them apart, presumably an adequate placebo for the fulfilling.

The choice of a placebo trial versus a comparative study is not necessarily an either/or proposition.

What they found was that ginkgo recipients fared no better on the tests than placebo recipients did.

Still others took echinacea or a placebo at the time they were infected.

Maybe the goal here is a kind of digital placebo effect:.

They received either hydrocortisone treatment or a placebo in the two weeks after birth.

Other studies have shown that opiates and other medications rely on a placebo to achieve part of their effect.

The penicillin proved no more benefit than the placebo in curing the throats, the study reported.

Giving out placebo birth control pills might cause a stir.

One possibility is the placebo effect: people felt better because they believed they had received an effective treatment.

The scientists reported that each infant was offered either the tea or placebo with every bout of.

Marianne was among the half of the women who had received a placebo patch-with no testosterone in it at all.

Last week, a clinical trial found that soy worked no better than a placebo for hot flashes and had no effect on bone density.

But it is also clear that the technique may have powerful placebo effects that could explain its success.

But until recently, no clinical studies taking into account the placebo effects have established that they actually work.

Devotees swore by the stuff, despite the scoffs of some scientists who ascribed any positive results to a placebo effect.

To stay under cover, a placebo also must produce side effects, he added.

In that situation, it's pretty difficult to make a case for a placebo control trial.

The patients weren't told because the researchers wanted to separate any impact of prayer from any placebo effect.

It lasts, and the placebo effect doesn't last once you stop a treatment.

Investigations comparing caffeine with water or placebo seldom found a statistical difference in urine volume, the author wrote.

But the study found only limited improvements, and the researchers said even these might have been caused by a placebo effect.

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Collins

World English Dictionary

placebo (pləˈsiːbəʊ)

—n , pl -bos, -boes
1.	med control group See also placebo effect 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
2.	something said or done to please or humour another
3.	RC Church a traditional name for the vespers of the office for the dead

[C13 (in the ecclesiastical sense): from Latin Placebo Domino I shall please the Lord (from the opening of the office for the dead); C19 (in the medical sense)]

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
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Etymonline

Word Origin & History

placebo

early 13c., name given to the rite of Vespers of the Office of the Dead, so called from the opening of the first antiphon, "I will please the Lord in the land of the living" (Psalm cxiv:9), from L. placebo "I shall please," future indic. of placere "to please" (see

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please). Medical sense is first recorded 1785, "a medicine given more to please than to benefit the patient."

COLLAPSE

American Heritage

Medical Dictionary

placebo pla·ce·bo (plə-sē'bō)
n. pl. pla·ce·bos or pla·ce·boes

A substance containing no medication and prescribed or given to reinforce a patient's expectation to get well.
An inactive substance or preparation used as a control in an experiment or test to determine the effectiveness of a medicinal drug.

American Heritage

Science Dictionary

placebo

(plə-sē'bō) Pronunciation Key
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.

American Heritage

Cultural Dictionary

placebo [(pluh-see-boh)]

A substance containing no active drug, administered to a patient participating in a medical experiment as a control.

Note: Those receiving a placebo often get better, a phenomenon known as the placebo effect.

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Matching Quote

"For me, as a beginning novelist, all other living writers form a control group for whom the world is a placebo."

-Nicholson Baker

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