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

Dark energy puts scientists in a spin Dark energy is a placeholder name given to whatever force is causing the universe to expand at an accelerating rate. —Robert Lea, Space.com, 21 June 2025

Star Wars Year: 1977 Runtime: 2h 5m Director: George Lucas Consider this entry a placeholder for your favorite Star Wars movies, all of which have an exclusive home on Disney+. —Brian Tallerico, Vulture, 20 June 2025

Senators have said the $10,000 cap is currently just a placeholder, is not finalized, and is still being negotiated. —Mariam Khan, ABC News, 16 June 2025

Absent a new president, five of the school’s 16 academic deans are left as interim placeholders, according to an email from UF journalism professor Hub Brown. —Ian Hodgson, The Orlando Sentinel, 4 June 2025

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