tabula rasa
noun/ˈtæbjʊlə ˈɹɑːzə/ · /ˈtæbjʊlə ˈɹeɪzə/
Etymology Unadapted borrowing from Latin tabula rāsa (literally “erased tablet”), where the collocation comprised tabula (“wax-covered writing tablet”, noun) + rāsa, feminine singular of rāsus (“scraped, erased, cleaned (of text)”, participial adjective).
1
Epistemology, Human sciences, Philosophy, Sciences A mind, as of a newborn, free of any impressions, notions, ideas, etc.
- Near-synonym: clean slate
- We all admit now that the Child does not come into the world with a mental tabula rasa of entire forgetfulness but on the contrary as the possessor of vast stores of sub-conscious memory, derived from its ancestral inheritances; we all admit that a certain grace and intuitive insight and even prophetic quality, in the child-nature, are due to the harmonization of these racial inheritances in the infant, even before it is born; and that after birth the impact of the outer world serves rather to break up and disintegrate this harmony than to confirm and strengthen it.1920, Edward Carpenter, Pagan and Christian Creeds, New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co., published 1921, page 173:
2
Anything which exists in a pristine state.
- Near-synonyms: clean slate, blank slate
- In his quest for rehabilitation, Connally is counting on the newspapers' behaving as they normally do: becoming tabulae rasae every 24 hours.1975 October 27, Aaron Latham, “John Connally on the Comeback Road”, in New York, volume 8, number 43, pages 47–48:
1 more example
- Facebook was a “tabula rasa with carte blanche”, [Yann] LeCun says. “Money was clearly not going to be a problem.”2026 January 3, Melissa Heikkilä, “Lunch with the FT: Yann LeCun”, in FT Weekend (Life & Arts section), London: The Financial Times Ltd., →ISSN, →OCLC, page 3:
- Related terms
- tablet, tabula, tabula ansata, tabula lusoria, tabular, tabulate, tabulated, tabulation