Tabula rasa

//ˈtæbjʊlə ˈɹɑːzə// noun

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A mind, as of a newborn, free of any impressions, notions, ideas, etc.; a blank slate. uncountable, usually

    "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."

  2. 2
    a young mind not yet affected by experience (according to John Locke) wordnet
  3. 3
    Anything which exists in a pristine state. uncountable, usually

    "In his quest for rehabilitation, Connally is counting on the newspapers' behaving as they normally do: becoming tabulae rasae every 24 hours."

  4. 4
    an opportunity to start over without prejudice wordnet

Etymology

From Latin tabula (“wax-covered writing tablet”) + rāsa, feminine singular of rāsus (“scraped, erased, cleaned (of text)”).

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