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Examples of sugar pill in a Sentence
Half the patients were given the medication and the other half received a sugar pill.
Recent Examples on the Web
In a cynical, despairing world, a sugar pill that calls itself a sugar pill might be the sweetest thing around.
—Tom Vanderbilt, WIRED, 19 Dec. 2023
The process was similar to a clinical trial for a new drug, in which some patients are randomly assigned the new drug and others are assigned an older drug or a sugar pill.
—Time, 18 Aug. 2023
In drug trials, a look-alike sugar pill and a test drug are randomly assigned to participants, but there’s no equivalent of a sugar pill for enrichment activities.
—Han Yu, WSJ, 25 Feb. 2021
In this context, my door-locking was less practical than ritual, one that brought me some inchoate sense of safety and wellbeing, like a psychic sugar pill.
—Hazlitt, 5 Apr. 2023
Neither was a daily sugar pill.
—Bruce Y. Lee, Forbes, 12 Apr. 2022
For example, a sugar pill or an injection of saline solution may be used instead of a dose of the drug.
—Zoe McLaren, Discover Magazine, 28 May 2020
The most basic argument for this, put forth by medical device makers and regulators, is that mimicking an invasive procedure is far more difficult than handing patients a sugar pill.
—Lizzy Lawrence, STAT, 16 Mar. 2023
Placebo is well accounted for; these trials always include a large placebo group in which patients are given a sugar pill or other fake treatment.
—Elizabeth Preston, Discover Magazine, 17 July 2012
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Word History
First Known Use
1852, in the meaning defined above
Dictionary Entries Near sugar pill
Cite this Entry
“Sugar pill.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sugar%20pill. Accessed 22 Dec. 2024.
Medical Definition
sugar pill
noun
: a pharmacologically inert pill : placebo
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