placebo
Pronunciation
Noun
B2 Upper-intermediate
Quick answer
A substance with no active medical effect, given to a patient as though it were real treatment, often to compare against an actual drug in a trial.
Usage notes
A placebo works partly through the placebo effect, where patients improve simply because they believe they're being treated.
Test yourself
Which word fits the gap? "Neither the patients nor the doctors knew who had received the real drug and who had received the _____."
Answer: placebo
In your own words, what does "placebo" mean?
A substance with no active medical effect, given to a patient as though it were real treatment, often to compare against an actual drug in a trial.
Learn next at B2
- plagiarism The act of presenting someone else's words or ideas as your own withou...
- plasma A hot, electrically charged gas-like state of matter, or the pale yell...
- platitude A remark that sounds meaningful but is actually so overused and obviou...
- pluralism A condition in which many different groups, beliefs, or interests coex...
- plutocracy A society or government controlled by the wealthy.
- point mutation A change involving just a single base in a DNA sequence.