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tabula rasa

 [tab-yuh-luh rah-suh, -zuh, rey-; Lat. tah-boo-lah rah-sah]   Origin

ta·bu·la ra·sa

   [tab-yuh-luh rah-suh, -zuh, rey-; Lat. tah-boo-lah rah-sah]
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; < Latin tabula rāsa scraped tablet, clean slate
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2012.
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Tabula rasa has a plethora of syllables.
So is cyclotrimethylenetrinitramine. Does it mean:
the estimation of something as valueless (encountered mainly as an example of one of the longest words in the English language).
a white, crystalline, water-insoluble, powerful high explosive, C3H6N6O6, used chiefly in bombs and shells.
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Collins
World English Dictionary
tabula rasa (ˈtæbjʊlə ˈrɑːsə)
 
—n , pl tabulae rasae
1.  (esp in the philosophy of Locke) the mind in its uninformed original state
2.  an opportunity for a fresh start; clean slate
 
[Latin: a scraped tablet (one from which the writing has been erased)]

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
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Etymonline
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
EXPAND
of Aristotle's pinakis agraphos, lit. "unwritten tablet" ("De anima," 7.22).
COLLAPSE
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper
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American Heritage
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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Encyclopedia Britannica
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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