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 first number is dust resistance from 0 to 6, and if the product is not rated to withstand dust there’s an X as a placeholder. —Ashley Thess, Outdoor Life, 14 Nov. 2024

Until the real turkey makes its way from the oven to the table, this resin turkey is the perfect placeholder. —Kaitlin Gates, Southern Living, 1 Nov. 2024

Keep any details, guidelines, examples, variables, or placeholders provided by the user. —Lance Eliot, Forbes, 16 Oct. 2024

But Marvel did put three new generic placeholder dates — February 18, 2028, May 5, 2028, and November 10, 2028 — on its release calendar on Tuesday. —Brian Welk, IndieWire, 22 Oct. 2024

Word History

First Known Use

1927, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Kids Definition

placeholder

noun

place·​hold·​er ˈplās-ˌhōl-dər 

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