"Placebo" comes straight from Latin and literally means "I shall please." It made its way into English as a prayer for the dead: "Placebo Domino in regione vivorum," or "I will please the Lord in the land of the living" (Psalm 114:9).

Over time, "placebo" grew to mean "to please someone by telling them what they want to hear: to flatter someone." It also meant "a flatterer: a suck-up, a sycophant." We don't use those meanings anymore. A more popular meaning took over.

Around the year 1785, folks in the medical field adopted the word "placebo" as a label for any medicine or method that doesn't do much physically, but does "please" the patient, helping them feel like they're being treated. 

As it turns out, that kind of psychological benefit can be incredibly strong. So if your symptoms really do improve after you take a placebo, you're benefiting from the placebo effect.

Part of speech:

Noun, the countable kind: "She took a placebo;" "They all took placebos."

Sometimes, also the uncountable kind: "They healed faster with this medicine than people on placebo."

Also an adjective, usually in phrases like "the placebo effect," "the placebo group," and "placebo pills."

Other forms: 

The plural is "placebos."

The adjective is rare: "placeboic." Let's see if we can get it to catch on!

The precise opposite of "placebo" is "nocebo." A nocebo is any kind of treatment that you think will cause you pain, so it does. I laughed when I first saw that word; I guessed that it was a made-up blend of "no" and "placebo." But actually, it too comes straight from Latin. It literally means "I shall cause harm."

how to use it:

"Placebo" is a common, scientific-sounding word. We use it to label things that help us feel better simply because we've given them the psychological power to do so.

You might talk about people taking a placebo, benefiting from a placebo, or enjoying something's placebo effect. Or, you might talk about scientific studies of medicines and other inventions, comparing how well the interventions worked compared to the placebo.

examples:

"These pills were going to bring me back to my old self, able to tackle everything, functional and efficient. I'd be talking to girls in school and telling them that I was messed up, that I had had problems but that I'd dealt with them, and they'd think I was brave and sexy and ask me to call them. It must have been a placebo effect, but it was a great placebo effect."
   — Ned Vizzini, It's Kind of a Funny Story, 2006

"[Luke Kuechly] has tried a variety of methods to speed the recovery process... But he's old school and keeps coming back to the ice tub, something players have used for decades... 'Maybe it's a placebo thing to me, but that’s my big thing, the cold tub. I have to have it.'"
   — Steve Reed, quoting Luke Kuechly, Associated Press, 19 August 2015

has this page helped you understand "placebo"?

Awesome, I'm glad it helped!

Thanks for letting me know!
If you have any questions about this word, please message me at Liesl@HiloTutor.com.

study it:

Explain the meaning of "placebo" without saying "placating treatment" or "something that works because you believe in it."

try it out:

A writer for the Washing Post noted:

"Sports are often used as the elixir to soothe our collective national pain. After the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, sporting events were a temporary but necessary distraction from the deluge of bad news. After the Boston Marathon bombings, Yankees fans paused in the third inning for a moment of silence before sending a message of support to their often-hated Boston counterparts by singing Fenway Park staple 'Sweet Caroline.' It was a nice moment. But are sports a panacea to life’s ills, or a placebo?"

First, explain what the writer means by asking whether sports are a panacea (a solution that completely fixes every problem) or a placebo. Then, try to answer that question yourself.

The writer posed the question as an either-or ("Are sports a panacea or a placebo?"), but feel free to respond "both," "neither," or something else entirely.
 

If you like, use this space to write. (To save your work, copy and paste it into an email or a document.)

before you review, play:

Try to spend 20 seconds or more on the game below. Don’t skip straight to the review—first, let your working memory empty out.

Our game for June is "Happy Stories in Hidden Cities."

I'll give you a sentence from a happy news story, along with a long word that contains all the letters, in order, of the name of the city in which the story takes place. And you give me the city.

Here's an example:

"A puppy was excited to experience his first-ever snowfall on Friday, November 11, after a winter storm swept through the area." FARRAGO.

The answer here is "Fargo," the city where this story takes place. You can spot the name FARGO inside FARRAGO.

Try this one today:

"A pair of non-profits are housing homeless people in tiny sustainable homes in the backyards of charitable volunteers who decide to host them." DISEMBATTLE.  

To see the answer, scroll all the way down!

review this word:

1. As we've seen, the precise opposite of a PLACEBO is a NOCEBO. But a pretty close opposite of a PLACEBO could be

A. a real drug.
B. a safe drug.
C. an illegal drug.

2. As David Wootton explains in The Invention of Science, in order to be effective, a modern medicinal therapy "must _____ a placebo."

A. do less harm than
B. take the place of
C. perform better than

Answers to the review questions: 1. A 2. C Answer to the game question: This story takes place in Seattle, whose name you can spot inside DISEMBATTLE.

a final word:

I hope you're enjoying Make Your Point. It's made with love. I'm Liesl Johnson, a reading and writing tutor on a mission to explore, illuminate, and celebrate words. From my blog: On vocabulary...       36 ways to study words.       Why we forget words, & how to remember them.       How to use sophisticated words without being awkward. On writing...       How to improve any sentence.       How to motivate our kids to write.       How to stop procrastinating and start writing.       How to bulk up your writing when you have to meet a word count. From my heart: a profound thanks to the generous patrons, donors, and sponsors that make it possible for me to write these emails. If you'd like to be a patron or a donor, please click here. If you'd like to be a sponsor and include your ad in an issue, please contact me at Liesl@HiloTutor.com. A disclaimer: When I write definitions, I use plain language and stick to the words' common, useful applications. If you're interested in authoritative and multiple definitions of words, I encourage you to check a dictionary. Also, because I'm American, I stick to American English when I share words' meanings, usage, and pronunciations; these elements sometimes vary across world Englishes.