subs. (medical and general).—1.  A pacifying dose: hence (2) a sop of placation. Whence, TO SING (or HUNT, or GO TO THE SCHOOL OF) PLACEBO = to be servilely complaisant, or time-serving; to ‘hold with the hare and hunt with the hounds.’

1

  1362.  LANGLAND, Piers Plowman’s Vision, l. 1991.

          Preestes and persons
With PLACEBO TO HUNTE.

2

  c. 1383.  WYCLIF, (?) On the Leaven of Pharisees, iv. [in F. D. MATTHEW’S, The English Works of Wyclif Hitherto Unprinted, (1880), 15]. Ȝif þei visyten not pore men in here sikenesse but riche men wiþ preue massis and PLACEBOES and dirige.

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  1383.  CHAUCER, The Canterbury Tales, ‘The Summoner’s Tale,’ I. 367.

        Beth ware, therefore, with lordes how ye pleye,
SYNGETH PLACEBO—and I shal if I kan.

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  1481.  CAXTON, Reynard the Fox (1880), xxvii. 65. Ther ben many that PLAY PLACEBO.

5

  1508.  SKELTON, Phyllyp Sparowe, 466.

          At this PLACEBO
We may not well forgo
The countrynge of the coe.

6

  1544.  KNOX, Godly Letter [MAITLAND, The Reformation in England, 88]. Nowe they haue BENE AT THE SKOOLE OF PLACEBO, and ther they haue lerned amongst ladyes daunse as the deuill lyst to pype.

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  1591.  HARINGTON, Preface to ARIOSTO’S Orlando Furioso. Of which comedie … when some (TO SING PLACEBO) aduised that it should be forbidden, because it was somewhat too plaine,… yet he would haue it allowed.

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  1625.  BACON, Essays, ‘Of Counsell,’ xxvi. And in stead of giuing Free Counsell, SING him a Song of PLACEBO.

9

  1819.  SCOTT, The Bride of Lammermoor, i. I made my bow in requital of the compliment, which was probably thrown in by way of PLACEBO.

10

  1887.  The American Journal of Psychology, Nov., I, 145, Physicians appeal to the imagination in desperate cases with bread pills and PLACEBOS.

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  1890.  Microcosm (New York), March. Delight at the temporary effects of such a PLACEBO hypodermically administered.

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  1892.  FENNELL, Stanford Dictionary, s.v. PLACEBO … Lat. PLACERE = to please: the opening antiphon of the vespers for the office of the dead in the Latin church, named from the first word of the Vulgate version, Placebo Domino in regione vivorum, ‘I will walk before (please) the Lord in the land of the living’ … hence phrases TO SING PLACEBO, TO PLAY PLACEBO = ‘to be complacent,’ ‘to be obsequious’; also an useless medicine intended merely to gratify and conciliate a patient.

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