clean slate
Hello,

Can anybody let me know the meaning of 'clean slate' here in the sentence below?

"All you have to do is ask for forgiveness and you get a clean slate."

Thank you!

Question

clean slate
Hello,

Can anybody let me know the meaning of 'clean slate' here in the sentence below?

"All you have to do is ask for forgiveness and you get a clean slate."

Thank you!

Answer

Totally agree with John.

Answer

It means that your errors, sins, mistakes, or crimes will be forgiven and not held against you.  A “slate” is a kind of surface that you can write on.   The idea in the “clean slate” idiom is that all of a person’s errors, sins, mistakes, or crimes get written down on a slate, but that the slate then gets erased so that it is as if the errors, sins, etc. never happened.