placebo

noun/pləˈsiboʊ/

Frequency rank: #7,867 of 20,003 in the WORDED list (wordfreq data)

Meaning

A substance with no therapeutic effect given to a patient who believes it is real medicine.

Illustration for the English word “placebo”

Example sentence

The patients who received the placebo reported feeling much better, even though it contained no active medicine.

Synonyms & related words

More words in ranks 7,801–7,900