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

But Sharpe forced himself into the conversation, not as a placeholder, but as a legitimate option who can swing games with effort and presence. —C.j. Holmes, New York Daily News, 8 Jan. 2026

For years, these domains displayed harmless placeholder pages. —Kurt Knutsson, FOXNews.com, 26 Dec. 2025

As a result, six placeholders were drawn during Friday's event. —Matt Schooley, CBS News, 6 Dec. 2025

In 2015, Sellers famously shamed then-Mayor Michael Hancock when the city failed to buy a 60-year service lapel pin and instead gave her a 15-year pin as a placeholder. —Noelle Phillips, Denver Post, 3 Dec. 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