The Collaborative International Dictionary
To learn by rote
Learn \Learn\, v. i. To acquire knowledge or skill; to make progress in acquiring knowledge or skill; to receive information or instruction; as, this child learns quickly.
Take my yoke upon you and learn of me.
--Matt. xi.
29.
To learn by heart. See By heart, under Heart.
To learn by rote, to memorize by repetition without exercise of the understanding.
Usage examples of "to learn by rote".
His students were given and expected to learn by rote the various simpler laws and formulae, like so many bricks ripped whole out of a misty and possibly useful structure.
It had seemed only one more set of things to learn by rote for no reason.