tabula rasa

See also: tábula rasa

English

Etymology

From Latin tabula (“tablet”) + rāsa, feminine singular of rāsus (“scraped, erased”).

Pronunciation

• Audio (US)

  (file)

Noun

tabula rasa (usually uncountable, plural tabulae rasae or tabulæ rasæ)

1. (uncountable) The idea that the mind comes into this world as a "blank slate".
2. (countable) 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, page 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

• Dutch: onbeschreven blad n
• Icelandic: óskrifuð tafla f, óskrifað blað n
• Italian: tabula rasa f
• Japanese: 白紙状態 (hakushi jōtai)

• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: ubeskrevet blad n, tabula rasa (no) m

• Portuguese: tábula rasa f
• Turkish: boş levha

---

Italian

Etymology

From Latin tabula (“tablet”) + rāsa, feminine singular of rāsus (“scraped, erased”).

Noun

tabula rasa f (invariable)

1. tabula rasa (all senses)

---

Norwegian Bokmål

Noun

    Declension of tabula rasa in Bokmål

		Genitive
Indefinite singular	tabula rasa	tabula rasas
Definite singular
Indefinite plural
Definite plural

1. tabula rasa (all senses)

---

Spanish

Noun

tabula rasa f (uncountable)

1. tabula rasa