blank slate

noun

: tabula rasa

Examples of blank slate in a Sentence

She viewed her students as blank slates, just waiting to be filled with knowledge.

Recent Examples on the Web

In leveraging their receipt of federal research and aid funding to impose terms on the universities, the Trump administration is not writing on a blank slate, but is instead indulging in the Trumpian habit of making loud and explicit what was previously done with more subtlety. —The Editors, National Review, 16 Apr. 2025

Revues, free to reimagine the spatial circumstances of a song, too often resort to the same blank slate of a black stage and a bright spotlight. —Jesse Green, New York Times, 9 Apr. 2025

Pound cake is a bit of a blank slate, so feel free to flavor the base as your see fit. —Mary Alice Russell, Southern Living, 16 Apr. 2025

Years of merchandising have amplified the sense of her as a blank slate, a product-endorsing personality that can mean everything to everyone, a gal who’s had every job on the planet. —Jackson McHenry, Vulture, 8 Apr. 2025

Word History

First Known Use

1886, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for blank slate

• abate
• airfreight
• await
• baseplate
• berate
• birthdate
• birthrate
• bookplate
• borate
• breastplate
• bromate
• casemate