See blank canvas in All languages combined, or Wiktionary
{
"etymology_text": "By analogy with artists who begin with a blank canvas, thereby possessing the freedom to shape it according to their creative inclinations.",
"forms": [
{
"form": "blank canvases",
"tags": [
"plural"
]
},
{
"form": "blank canvasses",
"tags": [
"plural"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "+",
"2": "blank canvasses"
},
"expansion": "blank canvas (plural blank canvases or blank canvasses)",
"name": "en-noun"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "noun",
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
{
"kind": "topical",
"langcode": "en",
"name": "Epistemology",
"orig": "en:Epistemology",
"parents": [
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"All topics",
"Fundamental"
],
"source": "w"
},
{
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"name": "Philosophy",
"orig": "en:Philosophy",
"parents": [
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"Fundamental"
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}
],
"examples": [
{
"bold_text_offsets": [
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44,
56
]
],
"text": "After his ex-wife moved out, his life was a blank canvas.",
"type": "example"
},
{
"bold_text_offsets": [
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91,
103
]
],
"ref": "1903, Leonard Merrick, The Quaint Companions:",
"text": "Her gaze was wide while she was wondering; then her lids drooped low, and lower, as on the blank canvas of her mental view there grew laboriously a conception.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"bold_text_offsets": [
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38,
50
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],
"ref": "2014, Panache Desai, Discovering Your Soul Signature, Hachette, →ISBN:",
"text": "But when we're truly engaged with the blank canvas of our lives, moment to moment, a timeless quality emerges.",
"type": "quote"
}
],
"glosses": [
"An unmarked or empty state, offering a limitless potential for creation, development or interpretation."
],
"id": "en-blank_canvas-en-noun-Vib6WU8A",
"links": [
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"philosophy",
"philosophy"
],
[
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"epistemology"
],
[
"unmarked",
"unmarked"
],
[
"empty",
"empty"
],
[
"state",
"state"
],
[
"offer",
"offer"
],
[
"limitless",
"limitless"
],
[
"potential",
"potential"
],
[
"creation",
"creation"
],
[
"development",
"development"
],
[
"interpretation",
"interpretation"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(figuratively, also philosophy, epistemology) An unmarked or empty state, offering a limitless potential for creation, development or interpretation."
],
"tags": [
"also",
"figuratively"
],
"topics": [
"epistemology",
"human-sciences",
"philosophy",
"sciences"
]
},
{
"categories": [
{
"_dis": "40 60",
"kind": "other",
"name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
"parents": [
"Entries with incorrect language header",
"Entry maintenance"
],
"source": "w+disamb"
},
{
"_dis": "30 70",
"kind": "other",
"name": "Pages with 1 entry",
"parents": [],
"source": "w+disamb"
},
{
"_dis": "17 83",
"kind": "other",
"name": "Pages with entries",
"parents": [],
"source": "w+disamb"
}
],
"examples": [
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"ref": "1916, Rebecca West, Henry James:",
"text": "There are no such personal revelations in The Madonna of the Future, nor anything, indeed, at all characteristic of Mr James. There is beauty in the tale of the American painter who dreams over a model for twenty years, while he and she grow old, and leaves at his death nothing more to show for his dreams than a cracked blank canvas; […]",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"bold_text_offsets": [
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116,
128
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],
"ref": "2023 July 26, Ben Jones, “EU open access growth offers pointers for UK hopefuls”, in RAIL, number 988, page 33:",
"text": "From a practical point of view, it has been easier to apply this model to Spain's high-speed system - effectively a blank canvas - than it would be to Britain's deeply interwoven and congested classic network.",
"type": "quote"
}
],
"glosses": [
"Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see blank, canvas."
],
"id": "en-blank_canvas-en-noun-vU5bgULR",
"links": [
[
"blank",
"blank#English"
],
[
"canvas",
"canvas#English"
]
],
"synonyms": [
{
"_dis1": "16 84",
"word": "blank leaf"
},
{
"_dis1": "16 84",
"word": "blank page"
},
{
"_dis1": "16 84",
"word": "blank sheet"
},
{
"_dis1": "16 84",
"word": "blank slate"
},
{
"_dis1": "16 84",
"word": "empty canvas"
},
{
"_dis1": "16 84",
"word": "empty leaf"
},
{
"_dis1": "16 84",
"word": "empty page"
},
{
"_dis1": "16 84",
"word": "empty sheet"
},
{
"_dis1": "16 84",
"word": "new canvas"
},
{
"_dis1": "16 84",
"word": "new leaf"
},
{
"_dis1": "16 84",
"word": "new page"
},
{
"_dis1": "16 84",
"word": "new sheet"
}
]
}
],
"sounds": [
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"audio": "en-au-blank canvas.ogg",
"mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/4/4d/En-au-blank_canvas.ogg/En-au-blank_canvas.ogg.mp3",
"ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4d/En-au-blank_canvas.ogg"
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"word": "blank canvas"
}
{
"categories": [
"English countable nouns",
"English entries with incorrect language header",
"English lemmas",
"English multiword terms",
"English nouns",
"Pages with 1 entry",
"Pages with entries"
],
"etymology_text": "By analogy with artists who begin with a blank canvas, thereby possessing the freedom to shape it according to their creative inclinations.",
"forms": [
{
"form": "blank canvases",
"tags": [
"plural"
]
},
{
"form": "blank canvasses",
"tags": [
"plural"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {
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"expansion": "blank canvas (plural blank canvases or blank canvasses)",
"name": "en-noun"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "noun",
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
"English terms with quotations",
"English terms with usage examples",
"en:Epistemology",
"en:Philosophy"
],
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91,
103
]
],
"ref": "1903, Leonard Merrick, The Quaint Companions:",
"text": "Her gaze was wide while she was wondering; then her lids drooped low, and lower, as on the blank canvas of her mental view there grew laboriously a conception.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"bold_text_offsets": [
[
38,
50
]
],
"ref": "2014, Panache Desai, Discovering Your Soul Signature, Hachette, →ISBN:",
"text": "But when we're truly engaged with the blank canvas of our lives, moment to moment, a timeless quality emerges.",
"type": "quote"
}
],
"glosses": [
"An unmarked or empty state, offering a limitless potential for creation, development or interpretation."
],
"links": [
[
"philosophy",
"philosophy"
],
[
"epistemology",
"epistemology"
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[
"empty",
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],
[
"state",
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[
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[
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],
[
"potential",
"potential"
],
[
"creation",
"creation"
],
[
"development",
"development"
],
[
"interpretation",
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],
"raw_glosses": [
"(figuratively, also philosophy, epistemology) An unmarked or empty state, offering a limitless potential for creation, development or interpretation."
],
"tags": [
"also",
"figuratively"
],
"topics": [
"epistemology",
"human-sciences",
"philosophy",
"sciences"
]
},
{
"categories": [
"English terms with quotations"
],
"examples": [
{
"bold_text_offsets": [
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322,
334
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],
"ref": "1916, Rebecca West, Henry James:",
"text": "There are no such personal revelations in The Madonna of the Future, nor anything, indeed, at all characteristic of Mr James. There is beauty in the tale of the American painter who dreams over a model for twenty years, while he and she grow old, and leaves at his death nothing more to show for his dreams than a cracked blank canvas; […]",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"bold_text_offsets": [
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116,
128
]
],
"ref": "2023 July 26, Ben Jones, “EU open access growth offers pointers for UK hopefuls”, in RAIL, number 988, page 33:",
"text": "From a practical point of view, it has been easier to apply this model to Spain's high-speed system - effectively a blank canvas - than it would be to Britain's deeply interwoven and congested classic network.",
"type": "quote"
}
],
"glosses": [
"Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see blank, canvas."
],
"links": [
[
"blank",
"blank#English"
],
[
"canvas",
"canvas#English"
]
]
}
],
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"audio": "en-au-blank canvas.ogg",
"mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/4/4d/En-au-blank_canvas.ogg/En-au-blank_canvas.ogg.mp3",
"ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4d/En-au-blank_canvas.ogg"
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],
"synonyms": [
{
"word": "blank leaf"
},
{
"word": "blank page"
},
{
"word": "blank sheet"
},
{
"word": "blank slate"
},
{
"word": "empty canvas"
},
{
"word": "empty leaf"
},
{
"word": "empty page"
},
{
"word": "empty sheet"
},
{
"word": "new canvas"
},
{
"word": "new leaf"
},
{
"word": "new page"
},
{
"word": "new sheet"
}
],
"word": "blank canvas"
}
Download raw JSONL data for blank canvas meaning in English (3.8kB)
This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-04-24 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-04-20 using wiktextract (813e02a and ea19a0a). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.
If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.