blank slate
8
4.8
- noun
:
pizarra en blanco
- When watching a movie, try to let your mind be a blank slate.
And we don't think that we're born blank slates, but we are so close to that.
- And we don't think that we're born blank slates, but we are so close to that.
- So the other view of the mind is the brain as a sort of blank slate, right?
- I certainly believe that we don't come in as a blank slate.
- Yes, let's take January seriously and let's use January to create a blank slate and to dream big again and to lift our heads up and to look ahead.
- The model that we have a blank slate mind and that all content in our heads comes from experience from the world.
- What I'm saying is that people aren't born with a blank slate.
- Part of part of the point I want to make here is that that we don't do our research from a blank slate.
Examples
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Designers of new curricula do not start with blank slates.
Academic text (1993) -
But my past, all those years before you found me, meant nothing; a blank slate.
Fiction book (1999) -
It's as if a birthday hands you a blank slate, a clean page, a fresh start and a whole new year.
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So the other view of the mind is the brain as a sort of blank slate, right?
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The health professional sets aside all personal feelings and issues and begins as a blank slate.
Academic text (2005) -
Most children arrive at our classroom doors not as blank slates but as unique individuals with varied backgrounds and skills.
Academic text (2015) -
And then every day or every moment is a blank slate for you to doodle, express yourself, distract yourself.
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We've got basically a blank slate with clean walls, brand new hardwood floors.
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The new employee felt like a blank slate, ready to learn everything from scratch.
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After the renovation, the house was a blank slate for the new owners to decorate as they pleased.
Synonyms
52
3.2
A chance to begin again after problems
21
4.1
A chance to start again without being blamed for past mistakes
1
9.6
A mind or situation with no previous experience
Antonyms
How Fresh
Surface Forms
Morphology
The phrase evokes a literally empty writing surface: 'blank' (empty) + 'slate' (a surface for writing), so the figurative idea of starting with no prior marks or history is directly and predictably inferable from the constituents. This classical metaphor (cf. tabula rasa) is cross-linguistically common, so a B1 learner who knows both words would readily understand the intended meaning.
Etymology
The noun blank slate comes from old school boards: a slate was a small board students wrote on, and a blank one had the writing wiped away, ready to be used again. So, calling someone or something a blank slate means it is 'starting with no past' or 'a fresh start'.