nocebo

English

WOTD – 23 October 2017

Cebocap placebo capsules.

Etymology

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

• (Received Pronunciation) enPR: nōsē′bō, IPA^(key): /nəʊˈsiː.bəʊ/

  • Audio (Southern England):

    (file)

• (General American) enPR: nōsē′bō, IPA^(key): /noʊˈsi.boʊ/
• Rhymes: -iːbəʊ
• Hyphenation: no‧ce‧bo

Noun

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

• nocebo effect

Translations

pharmacologically inactive substance experienced as harmful

• Albanian: nocebo
• Czech: nocebo (cs)
• Danish: nocebo
• Dutch: nocebo
• Finnish: nosebo
• Galician: nocebo
• German: Nocebo (de) n
• Indonesian: nocebo
• Italian: nocebo (it) m
• Korean: 노시보 (nosibo)
• Macedonian: ноцебо (nocebo)
• Norwegian: nocebo
• Polish: nocebo (pl)
• Portuguese: nocebo m
• Russian: ноцебо (ru) (nocebo)
• Spanish: nocebo (es)
• Swedish: nocebo
• Turkish: nocebo
• Ukrainian: ноцебо (nocebo)
• Vietnamese: nocebo

See also

• drug
• placebo

Further reading

• nocebo on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Latin

Pronunciation

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): /noˈkeː.boː/, [nɔˈkeːboː]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /noˈt͡ʃe.bo/, [noˈt͡ʃɛːbo]

Verb

nocēbō

1. first-person singular future active indicative of noceō

Descendants

• English: nocebo