Rote

To learn by rote is to learn by turning words round and round in the memory as a wheel. To “learn by heart” is to learn thoroughly (French, apprendre par cœur). Shakespeare speaks of the “heart of loss,” meaning entire loss, and to love with “all our heart” is to love thoroughly. (Latin, rota, a wheel.)

“Take hackneyʹd jokes from Milier got by rote.”

Byron: English Bards, etc.

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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.