How to use placebo in a sentence

19 example sentences · noun

Placebo means a dummy medicine containing no active ingredients; an inert treatment. Example: “This drug cannot be used therapeutically except as a placebo.”

Examples of placebo by meaning

nounA 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.2010 February 22, Edzard Ernst, “No to homeopathy placebo”, in The Guardian
The trials overall showed some but limited effectiveness, and in one of the largest and longest trials, the placebo performed better in treating spasticity, pain and bladder dysfunction, Dr.2021 March 8, Jane E. Brody, “Medical Marijuana Is Not Regulated as Most Medicines Are”, in The New York Times

nounThe 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.2011, Thomas Penn, Winter King, Penguin, published 2012, page 349

More sentences with placebo

This drug cannot be used therapeutically except as a placebo.From the entry therapeutically
Knowingly giving a person a placebo when there is an effective treatment available is a bioethically complex issue.From the entry bioethically
What would happen if we gave patients a placebo—and told them it was a placebo?2023 July 21, What if Placebos ARE the Medicine? (Unsung Science), season 2, episode 15, David Pogue (actor), CBS News. From the entry placebology
Mice were injected intratibially with mouse OS cells and then randomized to receive placebo or doxorubicin.2015 March 17, Wendy Allen-Rhoades et al., “Cross-species identification of a plasma microRNA signature for detection, therapeutic…. From the entry intratibially
It's why I had my doctor take me off my placebos.2012 November 7, The Colbert Report, Stephen Colbert (actor). From the entry nocebo effect
In the placebo condition, heart rate decreased consistently from presmoking levels.1972, Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, Volumes 190-191, New York Academy of Sciences, page 211. From the entry presmoking
It truly doesn’t, funny how so many people in this sub keep buying certain peptides for the placebo.2025 March 19, Reddit, archived from the original on 19 Mar 2025. From the entry peptide
False-negative indiscriminative studies are often caused by placebo effects.2019, Philippe Auby, Clinical Research in Paediatric Psychopharmacology, page 125. From the entry indiscriminative
The “placebo effect”—the power of mind over illness—is often so strong that the sugar pills frequently outcure the real drugs!2015, Ray C. Stedman, God's Loving Word. From the entry outcure
The first was a 6-week study on 59 refractory anergically depressed patients which were randomly assigned to tranylcypromine vs. placebo.2014, Kostas N. Fountoulakis, Bipolar Disorder: An Evidence-Based Guide to Manic Depression. From the entry anergically
The nocebo effect is a negative placebo effect.2012 November 7, The Colbert Report, Stephen Colbert (actor). From the entry nocebo effect
Unlike their conventional counterparts, practitioners of alternative medicine often excel at harnessing the placebo effect, says Dr Ernst.2011 May 19, “Think yourself better”, in The Economist, →ISSN. From the entry alternative medicine
Abaspour recalled, her husband said, “I think we should just give her a placebo — it’s all in her head.”2006 October 22, Pam Belluck, “Living With Love, Chaos and Haley”, in The New York Times, archived from the original on 10 Mar 2016…. From the entry neurologist
Twenty healthy individuals participated in the study and on two occasions consumed the ketone monoester supplement or a placebo after a 10-hour fast.2018 February 14, “Ketone drink could help diabetics by lowering blood sugar”, in Voxy.co.nz, archived from the original on 14 Feb 2018. From the entry monoester
In comparative studies, intranasal azelastine was more effective than placebo and at least as effective as oral antihistamines or intranasal corticosteroids in relieving allergic rhinitis.2013, Marilyn Winterton Edmunds, Pharmacology for the Primary Care Provider, page 201. From the entry intranasal
If the promising but untested treatment would replace EET, the head-to-head comparison would be similar to the "placebo-controlled" trials I've already described, but with EET in place of the placebo.2012, R. Brian Haynes, Clinical Epidemiology: How to Do Clinical Practice Research, page 197. From the entry EET

Meaning of placebo

noun A dummy medicine containing no active ingredients; an inert treatment.
noun The vespers sung in the office for the dead.

Full definition of placebo

Questions about placebo in a sentence

How do you use placebo in a sentence?: Placebo is used as a noun. For example: “This drug cannot be used therapeutically except as a placebo.”
What is a short sentence with placebo?: “The nocebo effect is a negative placebo effect.”
What does placebo mean?: Placebo means a dummy medicine containing no active ingredients; an inert treatment.

Adapted from Wiktionary: placebo (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Cite this page: “How to use placebo in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/placebo. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.