- Medicine/Medical, Pharmacology.
- a substance having no pharmacological effect but given merely to satisfy a patient who supposes it to be a medicine.
- a substance having no pharmacological effect but administered as a control in testing experimentally or clinically the efficacy of a biologically active preparation.
- the vespers of the office for the dead: so called from the initial word of the first antiphon, taken from Psalm 114:9 of the Vulgate.
- an inactive substance or other sham form of therapy administered to a patient usually to compare its effects with those of a real drug or treatment, but sometimes for the psychological benefit to the patient through his believing he is receiving treatment
- something said or done to please or humour another
- a traditional name for the vespers of the office for the dead
