Emily Dickinson Lexicon

ROTE, n.² [L. rota, a wheel, whence Fr. routine.]

Properly, a round of words; frequent repetition of words or sounds, without attending to the signification, or to principles and rules; a practice that impresses words in the memory, without an effort of the understanding, and without the aid of rules. Thus children learn to speak by rote; they often repeat what they hear, till it becomes familiar to them. So we learn to sing by rote, as we hear notes repeated, and soon learn to repeat them ourselves.