Etymograph

English

placebo

Placebo comes from Latin placēbō ‘I will please’, and goes back to placeō.

  1. Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEplaceō1‘to please’
  2. Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEplacēbō1‘I will please’
  3. Middle Englishc. 1150–1500placebo2‘Talk for buttering someone up, making them sycophantic or pleasing them’
  4. Englishearliest quotation 2010placebo2

attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed deepest recorded ancestor

  1. 1 Wiktionary, Middle English placebo
  2. 2 Wiktionary, English placebo
  3. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 2010, Edzard Ernst, No to homeopathy placebo: “The acid test, I thought, was whether homeopathic remedies…”.

Lineage

  1. Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEplaceōWiktionary, Middle English placebo‘to please’
  2. Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEplacēbōWiktionary, Middle English placebo‘I will please’
  3. Middle Englishc. 1150–1500placeboWiktionary, English placebo‘Talk for buttering someone up, making them sycophantic or pleasing them’
  4. Englishearliest quotation 2010placeboWiktionary, English placebo. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 2010, Edzard Ernst, No to homeopathy placebo: “The acid test, I thought, was whether homeopathic remedies…”

Linked words

through Latin placeō ‘to please’

please, pleasure, plead, 8 more

Today it means

noun A dummy medicine containing no active ingredients; an inert treatment.

Sources

Sources: Wiktionary, “placebo”; the older steps come from the Wiktionary entry for Middle English placebo. By Wiktionary contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0, via kaikki.org (dump of Oct 3 2026); text adapted and restructured. Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word. License.

Etymograph / Latin placeō / placebo

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