Word.ws English Dictionary

nocebo

Syllables: no·ce·bo/nəʊˈsiː.bəʊ/US/noʊˈsi.boʊ/

nocebo noun: a substance which a patient experiences as harmful due to a previous negative perception, but which is in fact pharmacologically (medicinally) inactive.

nocebo: a substance which a patient experiences as harmful due to a previous negative perception, but which...
Image: NIH, objects donated by Elaine and Arthur Shapiro, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

nocebo (plural nocebos)

  1. (also, attributive) A substance which a patient experiences as harmful due to a previous negative perception, but which is in fact pharmacologically (medicinally) inactive.
    • It is somewhat surprising that little attention has been drawn to the existence of the contrary effect [to the placebo] – which I may call the nocebo reaction.1961 September, Walter P. Kennedy, “The Nocebo Reaction”, in Medical World, volume 95, London: Medical Practitioners' Union, →ISSN, →OCLC, →PMID, page 203
    • In the case of the nocebo, it is negative expectations that become self-fulfilling prophecies.2009 April 25, Stuart Blackman, “Why health warnings can be bad”, in Financial Times

nocebo meaning in Indonesian and Vietnamese

nocebo in Indonesian

a pharmacologically inactive substance experienced as harmful
nocebo

nocebo in Vietnamese

a pharmacologically inactive substance experienced as harmful
nocebo

Examples of nocebo in a sentence

  • It seems to be a "nocebo" effect – the self-diagnosed gluten sensitive patients expected to feel worse on the study diets, so they did.2014 May 15, Jennifer Welsh, “Researchers who Provided Key Evidence for Gluten Sensitivity have now Thoroughly Shown that It Doesn’t...
  • If there's one lesson to be drawn from the nocebo effect, it's that ideas are never merely ideas. […] Maybe you see where I'm going with this: our grim view of humanity is also a nocebo.2020, Rutger Bregman, Humankind, Bloomsbury Publishing, →ISBN:

Forms of nocebo

pluralnocebos

Origin of nocebo

Borrowed from Latin nocēbō (“I will harm”), the first-person singular future active indicative form of noceō (“to harm”), by analogy with placebo. The word was coined by Walter P. Kennedy in an article entitled “The Nocebo Reaction” (1961). (see quotation).

Words formed from nocebo

Phrases with nocebo

Words that rhyme with nocebo

Questions about nocebo

What does nocebo mean?
Nocebo means a substance which a patient experiences as harmful due to a previous negative perception, but which is in fact pharmacologically (medicinally) inactive.
What is nocebo in Indonesian?
Nocebo in Indonesian is nocebo. See Nocebo meaning in Indonesian.
How do you use nocebo in a sentence?
It seems to be a "nocebo" effect – the self-diagnosed gluten sensitive patients expected to feel worse on the study diets, so they did.
What part of speech is nocebo?
Nocebo is a noun.
How do you pronounce nocebo?
Nocebo is pronounced /nəʊˈsiː.bəʊ/ (UK).
What is the plural of nocebo?
The plural of nocebo is nocebos.

Words near nocebo in the dictionary

  1. nocardiosis
  2. nocardiotic
  3. nocathiacin
  4. nocathiacins
  5. Noce
  6. nocebo
  7. nocebo effect
  8. nocebo effects
  9. nocebos
  10. noceffector
  11. noceffectors

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: nocebo (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “nocebo.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/nocebo. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.