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Wiktionary
placeholder

n. Something used or included temporarily or as a substitute for something that is not known or must remain generic; that which holds, denotes or reserves a place for something to come later.

WordNet
placeholder
  1. n. a person authorized to act for another [syn: proxy, procurator]

  2. a symbol in a logical or mathematical expression that can be replaced by the name of any member of specified set

Wikipedia
Placeholder

Placeholder may refer to:

Placeholder (politics)

In politics, a placeholder is an official appointed temporarily to a position, with the understanding that they will not seek office in their own right.

The situation often occurs in cases where a United States Senator leaves office before the expiration of their term. In most states, governors have the power to appoint a replacement temporarily, until a special election can be held. If a governor is interested in seeking office, he or she may appoint themselves to the position; however, this may be seen by voters in a negative light, and may backfire, leading to the new senator's defeat. To avoid this, the governor may instead select an aide or elder statesman to fill the slot for a few months. Sen. George LeMieux of Florida, for example, was appointed by Florida Governor Charlie Crist to a senate seat that Crist ultimately sought.

Placeholders may also be used in cases where more than one member of a party is interested in seeking the office, and the governor does not wish to choose between competing members of his or her own party. Placeholders may also be appointed when a senator leaves office while a campaign for his or her seat is already underway, so as not to affect the outcome of the election. For example, after the death of Senator Paul Wellstone in 2002 just weeks before election day, Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura appointed Dean Barkley to serve, as Barkley was not running for the office, and his appointment would not affect the election.

Historically, in cases where a politician died in office, a variation known as widow's succession was sometimes followed, where the deceased politician's widow was appointed to the seat as a placeholder.

Usage examples of "placeholder".

But it was an explanation that could serve as a scientific placeholder until something better came along.

Lee meant the phrase as nothing but a polite conversational placeholder, but Rhoodie nodded all the same.

And gradually a lame placeholder of a line became locked in place and is now formally part of the song, part of the movie, and so on.

Day, she never left the Placehold, and she never spoke to men, visitors, or single Placeholders, except for Whandall.

It was a work-in-progress, blocks of as-yet-unwritten code replaced with cryptically labeled placeholders, but the basic intent was clear enough.

Pieces of the backup warp-drive were all over the floor, or hovering on placeholders, and Scotty was thundering around among his engineering ensigns, shouting at them.

Usually, index references were tied to important words, so that if you just wanted to stop and think without bringing up a bunch of references you didn't want, all you had to do was keep your gaze focused in an area of placeholder words, empty phrases like “If this were all that could be …” Anyone who made it a habit to read indexed works soon learned this trick and used it till it became reflex.