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tabula rasa

 - 5 dictionary results

ta⋅bu⋅la ra⋅sa

  [tab-yuh-luh rah-suh, -zuh, rey-; Lat. tah-boo-lah rah-sah]
Use tabula rasa in a Sentence
–noun, plural ta⋅bu⋅lae ra⋅sae  [tab-yuh-lee rah-see, -zee, rey-; Lat. tah-boo-lahy rah-sahy] .
1. a mind not yet affected by experiences, impressions, etc.
2. anything existing undisturbed in its original pure state.
Origin:
1525–35; < L tabula rāsa scraped tablet, clean slate
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.
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tab·u·la ra·sa   (tāb'yə-lə rä'sə, -zə)   
n.   pl. tab·u·lae ra·sae (tāb'yə-lē' rä'sē, -zē)

    1. The mind before it receives the impressions gained from experience.

    2. The unformed, featureless mind in the philosophy of John Locke.

  2. A need or an opportunity to start from the beginning.


[Medieval Latin tabula rāsa : Latin tabula, tablet + Latin rāsa, feminine of rāsus, erased.]
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2009 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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Cultural Dictionary

tabula rasa [(tab-yuh-luh rah-zuh, rah-suh)]

Something new, fresh, unmarked, or uninfluenced. Tabula rasa is Latin for “blank slate.”

Note: John Locke believed that a child's mind was a tabula rasa.
The American Heritage® New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition
Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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Word Origin & History

tabula rasa 
1535, "the mind in its primary state," from L., lit. "scraped tablet," from which writing has been erased, thus ready to be written on again, from tabula (see table) + rasa, fem. pp. of radere "to scrape away, erase" (see raze). A loan-translation of Aristotle's pinakis agraphos, lit. "unwritten tablet" ("De anima," 7.22).
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2001 Douglas Harper
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Encyclopedia

tabula rasa

(Latin: "scraped tablet," i.e., "clean slate"), in epistemology (theory of knowledge) and psychology, a supposed condition that empiricists attribute to the human mind before ideas have been imprinted on it by the reaction of the senses to the external world of objects.

Learn more about tabula rasa with a free trial on Britannica.com.

Encyclopedia Britannica, 2008. Encyclopedia Britannica Online.
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