Wiktionary

nocebo

English

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WOTD – 23 October 2017
 
Cebocap placebo capsules.

Etymology

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Borrowed from Latin nocēbō (“I will harm”), the first-person singular future active indicative form of noceō (“I harm”), by analogy with placebo. The word was coined by Walter P. Kennedy in a 1961 article entitled “The Nocebo Reaction” (see quotation).

Pronunciation

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Noun

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nocebo (plural nocebos)

  1. (pharmacology, also attributive) A substance which a patient experiences as harmful due to a previous negative perception, but which is in fact pharmacologically (medicinally) inactive. [from 1961]
    • 1961 September, Walter P. Kennedy, “The Nocebo Reaction”, in Medical World, volume 95, London: Medical Practitioners' Union, →ISSN, →OCLC, →PMID, page 203:
      It is somewhat surprising that little attention has been drawn to the existence of the contrary effect [to the placebo] – which I may call the nocebo reaction.
    • 2009 April 25, Stuart Blackman, “Why health warnings can be bad”, in Financial Times:
      In the case of the nocebo, it is negative expectations that become self-fulfilling prophecies.
    • 2014 May 15, Jennifer Welsh, “Researchers who Provided Key Evidence for Gluten Sensitivity have now Thoroughly Shown that It Doesn’t Exist”, in Business Insider‎[1], archived from the original on 2 July 2017:
      It seems to be a "nocebo" effect – the self-diagnosed gluten sensitive patients expected to feel worse on the study diets, so they did.
    • 2020, Rutger Bregman, Humankind‎[2], Bloomsbury Publishing, →ISBN:
      If there's one lesson to be drawn from the nocebo effect, it's that ideas are never merely ideas. […] Maybe you see where I'm going with this: our grim view of humanity is also a nocebo.

Derived terms

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Translations

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See also

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Further reading

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Latin

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Pronunciation

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Verb

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nocēbō

  1. first-person singular future active indicative of noceō

Descendants

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  • English: nocebo
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Idea 2
idea 2
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