placeholder

noun

place·​hold·​er ˈplās-ˌhōl-dər 

plural placeholders

1

: a person or thing that occupies the position or place of another person or thing

The bill would empower the governor to appoint a placeholder to a vacant U.S. Senate seat, to serve through the next general election cycle.

—John Sharp

The result was that the legislation represented little more than a placeholder to put the budget before a conference committee …

—Carl Ingram

2

: a symbol in a mathematical or logical expression that may be replaced by the name of any element of a set

3

American football : a player who places and holds the ball upright on the ground for placekicking of a field goal

Examples of placeholder in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Crucially, double-check all automatic placeholders to avoid embarrassing errors that betray the human touch. —Jodie Cook, Forbes.com, 18 June 2026

The almost $356 billion deal was driven by Democrats who showed broad support for the placeholder agreement, which was struck by leaders in both the Assembly and Senate and announced last week. —Stephen Hobbs, Sacbee.com, 16 June 2026

The Browns are playing for 2027 and beyond, and anyone who’s not in the longer-term plans can and should be viewed as a placeholder. —Zac Jackson, New York Times, 12 June 2026

This model takes a field of placeholder tokens running over the canvas multiple times to generate likely tokens and using those to improve estimation of others. —ArsTechnica, 10 June 2026

Word History

First Known Use

1927, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Rhymes for placeholder

• officeholder
• beholder
• bondholder
• cardholder
• freeholder
• householder
• landholder
• leaseholder
• lienholder
• shareholder
• slaveholder
• smallholder

Kids Definition

placeholder

noun

place·​hold·​er ˈplās-ˌhōl-dər 

: a symbol used in mathematics in the place of a numeral not yet known