PLACEBO EFFECT

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does placebo effect mean? 

• PLACEBO EFFECT (noun)
  The noun PLACEBO EFFECT has 1 sense:

1. 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

  Familiarity information: PLACEBO EFFECT used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• PLACEBO EFFECT (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

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

Classified under:

Nouns denoting natural phenomena

Hypernyms ("placebo effect" is a kind of...):

consequence; effect; event; issue; outcome; result; upshot (a phenomenon that follows and is caused by some previous phenomenon)