Placeholder

Placeholder may refer to:

In language:

• Placeholder name, words that can refer to objects or people, whose names are unknown or irrelevant
• Filler text, shares some characteristics of a real written text, but is random or otherwise generated
• Lorem ipsum, text used to demonstrate the font, typography or layout in a document

In mathematics and computer science:

• Free variables and bound variables, symbols that will later be replaced by some literal string
• Metasyntactic variable, alias term used to denote the subject matter under discussion
• Format placeholder, used to format strings in printf functions

In politics:

• Placeholder (politics), a person appointed to an office temporarily, until a permanent replacement can be chosen.