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 print functions
In politics:
- Placeholder (politics), a person appointed to an office temporarily, until a permanent replacement can be chosen.