sham

Object

acupuncture: Thus, for example: " Is standard manual acupuncture superior to sham acupuncture in improving the quality of life after ischaemic stroke?

Converse of object

• expose: A boycott is surely called for to expose the sham of this " recall " .
• become: The democratic process has become a sham - there is an elected dictatorship in Parliament.
• make: The whole thing is a complete shambles and is making a sham of democracy.

Adjective modifier

• miserable: The whole exercise brought home to me just what a miserable sham of a show EastEnders was.
• mere: How little real secret communion with God, without which, the outside is mere sham.
• complete: The pretense that official policy has been agreed in partnership with civil society is a complete sham.
• total: Every moment of quality is ruined by another of total sham.
• regulatory: This incident highlights the regulatory sham surrounding Bt crops [ 14, 15 ] .
• cynical: Over the last 5 years this government's much proclaimed ethical foreign policy has been exposed for the cynical sham that it always was.

Modifies a noun

• acupuncture: Acupuncture or sham acupuncture was given twice a week for two weeks, followed by once a week for 10 weeks.
• marriage: Not only is she unfaithful, she proposes a sham marriage.
• manipulation: There were no significant benefits with osteopathic manipulative treatment, as compared with sham manipulation.
• injection: All of the trials except one compared corticosteroid to saline injection, the other using a sham injection.
• democracy: Thus the first luxury to be discarded in this imperialist war is sham capitalist democracy.
• fight: A view of the sham fight with Fort Denison at the left of the picture.

Modifying Another Word

not: Let us take the place of free thinkers and real skeptics, not shams.

Noun used with modifier

pillow: With every bedspread you order, recieve a matching pair of pillow shams FREE!

Preposition: of

• democracy: The experience of the last four years has shown me quite clearly just what a sham of democracy the European Parliament really is.
• Christianity: But he harbored deeper feelings on many subjects, particularly the sham of Christianity, noting them down and hiding them away.