Phrase guide

placebo effect

noun · 2 senses · updated from the 2026-07-25 local source snapshot

Definitions and examples are grouped by meaning. Pronunciation, history, word forms, translations, descendants, synonyms, antonyms, derived terms, and related words appear whenever the source provides them.

Sound

Pronunciation

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No pronunciation record was provided for this word.

1

noun

Meaning 1

A phenomenon where a person's health improves after receiving a treatment that has no direct therapeutic mechanism.

Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract

Usage: especially

Topics: medicine, pharmacology, sciences

No example sentence was provided for this meaning.

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: none provided

Antonyms: none provided

2

noun

Meaning 2

any effect that seems to be a consequence of administering a placebo; the change is usually beneficial and is assumed result from the person's faith in the treatment or preconceptions about what the experimental drug was supposed to do; pharmacologists were the first to talk about placebo effects but now the idea has been generalized to many situations having nothing to do with drugs

Definition source: Princeton WordNet 3.0

No example sentence was provided for this meaning.

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: none provided

Antonyms: none provided

Broader terms: consequence, effect, outcome, result, event, issue, upshot

History

Etymology

No etymology was provided for this word.

Across languages

Translations

13 source translations are retained for this English entry.

  • Chinese Mandarin: 安慰劑效應 /安慰剂效应 (ānwèijì xiàoyīng) — tendency for a substance to exhibit results due to belief of the recipient
  • Dutch: placebo-effect — tendency for a substance to exhibit results due to belief of the recipient
  • Finnish: lumevaikutus — tendency for a substance to exhibit results due to belief of the recipient
  • Finnish: plasebovaikutus — tendency for a substance to exhibit results due to belief of the recipient
  • French: effet placebo — tendency for a substance to exhibit results due to belief of the recipient
  • German: Placeboeffekt — tendency for a substance to exhibit results due to belief of the recipient
  • Hungarian: placebohatás — tendency for a substance to exhibit results due to belief of the recipient
  • Italian: effetto placebo — tendency for a substance to exhibit results due to belief of the recipient
  • Polish: efekt placebo — tendency for a substance to exhibit results due to belief of the recipient
  • Russian: эффе́кт плаце́бо (effékt placébo) — tendency for a substance to exhibit results due to belief of the recipient
  • Spanish: efecto placebo — tendency for a substance to exhibit results due to belief of the recipient
  • Swedish: placeboeffekt — tendency for a substance to exhibit results due to belief of the recipient
  • Turkish: plasebo etkisi — tendency for a substance to exhibit results due to belief of the recipient