Etymology
From Latin tabula (“wax-covered writing tablet”) + rāsa, feminine singular of rāsus (“scraped, erased, cleaned (of text)”).
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /ˈtæbjʊlə ˈɹɑːzə/, /ˈtæbjʊlə ˈɹeɪzə/
Noun
tabula rasa (usually uncountable, plural tabulae rasae or tabulæ rasæ)
- A mind, as of a newborn, free of any impressions, notions, ideas, etc.; a "blank slate".
1920, Edward Carpenter, Pagan and Christian Creeds, New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co., published 1921, page 173: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.
- Anything which exists in a pristine state.
1975 October 27, Aaron Latham, “John Connally on the Comeback Road”, in New York, volume 8, number 43, pages 47–48:In his quest for rehabilitation, Connally is counting on the newspapers' behaving as they normally do: becoming tabulae rasae every 24 hours.
Translations
the idea that the mind comes into the world as a blank state
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /ˈta.bu.la ˈra.za/
- Syllabification: ta‧bu‧la ra‧sa
Further reading
- tabula rasa in Wielki słownik języka polskiego, Instytut Języka Polskiego PAN
- tabula rasa in Polish dictionaries at PWN