placebo

English Thesaurus

1. (Roman Catholic Church) vespers of the office for the dead (noun.act)

hypernym	:	vesper,
definition	:	a late afternoon or evening worship service (noun.act)

domain category	:	church of rome, roman catholic, roman catholic church, roman church, western church,
definition	:	the Christian Church based in the Vatican and presided over by a pope and an episcopal hierarchy (noun.group)

2. an innocuous or inert medication; given as a pacifier or to the control group in experiments on the efficacy of a drug (noun.artifact)

hypernym	:	medicament, medication, medicinal drug, medicine,
definition	:	(medicine) something that treats or prevents or alleviates the symptoms of disease (noun.artifact)

hyponym	:	active placebo,
definition	:	a placebo used in experimental tests of a drug that has noticeable side effects (noun.artifact)