placebo

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   A dummy medicine containing no active ingredients; an inert treatment.

   The acid test, I thought, was whether homeopathic remedies behave differently from placebos when submitted to clinical trials.

2. 2
   noun

   The vespers sung in the office for the dead.

   There the placebo, the office for the dead, was sung, and a vigil kept throughout the night.

Inherited from Middle English placebo, borrowed from Latin placēbō (“I will please”), the first-person singular future active indicative of placeō (“to please”).

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