Roted

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. Learned or committed to memory through mechanical repetition rather than through understanding the meaning
2. Memorized by constant drilling and repeated recitation, without any real grasp of what the material means
3. Committed to memory by dull repetition, so that the words are retained but not necessarily comprehended

Etymology: "Roted" is simply the past tense and past participle of "rote," so its history is the history of that verb's sense "learned by repetition." That sense is the surprise: the root of "rote" is unknown, and the word has been traced to several competing guesses. One guess links it to "rota," Latin for "wheel," the idea being that repetition goes round and round. Specialists have dismissed that connection, along with a link to Old French "route," as groundless. The most plausible explanation is metaphorical. The earlier noun "rote" meant "custom, habit, or routine," and by about 1300 it appeared in the phrase "by rote," meaning "by heart" or "according to form." Learning something by rote came to mean memorising it through repetition, without necessarily understanding it, so the word's meaning drifted from habit toward mechanical recitation.