Synonyms/Hypernyms (Ordered by Estimated Frequency) of noun placebo_effect

1 sense of placebo effect

Sense 1
placebo effect -- (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)
       => consequence, effect, outcome, result, event, issue, upshot -- (a phenomenon that follows and is caused by some previous phenomenon; "the magnetic effect was greater when the rod was lengthwise"; "his decision had depressing consequences for business"; "he acted very wise after the event")