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

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

The rough cut used very early placeholder audio for Gizmo and the Gremlins, and those sounds completely pulled you out of the movie. — Jim Hemphill, IndieWire, 23 June 2026

The placeholder name for the force driving this acceleration is dark energy. — Robert Lea, Space.com, 12 May 2026

Filed as an ‘intent-to-use’ application, the paperwork functions as a legal placeholder for a product that hasn’t officially launched yet. — Mrigakshi Dixit, Interesting Engineering, 22 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