nocebo

English

WOTD – 23 October 2017

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 an article entitled “The Nocebo Reaction” (1961). (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, 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, 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

a 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): [nɔˈkeː.boː]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): [noˈt͡ʃɛː.bo]

Verb

nocēbō

1. first-person singular future active indicative of noceō

Descendants

• English: nocebo