BY HEART

Pronunciation (US):

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does by heart mean? 

• BY HEART (adverb)
  The adverb BY HEART has 1 sense:

1. by committing to memory

  Familiarity information: BY HEART used as an adverb is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• BY HEART (adverb)

Sense 1

Meaning:

By committing to memory

Synonyms:

by heart; by memory

Context example:

she knew the poem by heart

 Context examples 

His nature opened to music as a flower to the sun, and the transition was quick from his working-class rag-time and jingles to her classical display pieces that she knew nearly by heart.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

Many men do it when they are trying to learn anything by heart.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Mr. Darcy's letter she was in a fair way of soon knowing by heart.

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

The finding could eventually lead to being able to grow working human cardiac tissue that could one day be used to replace heart cells damaged by heart attacks.

(Human Heart Cells Grown on Spinach Leaves, VOA News)

The treatment was delivered into the bloodstream of the mouse using a modified virus, which is then mostly taken up by heart cells.

(Mitochondrial diseases could be treated with gene therapy, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)

You always was brisk for business, and has the rules by heart, George, as I'm pleased to see.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

“Then we’ll drop him over without any palavering, unless our clerical-looking castaway has the burial service at sea by heart.”

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

I soon forgot him in the contemplation of Steerforth, who, in an easy amateur way, and without any book (he seemed to me to know everything by heart), took some of his classes until a new master was found.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

It is not that I am afraid of learning by heart, said Fanny, shocked to find herself at that moment the only speaker in the room, and to feel that almost every eye was upon her; but I really cannot act.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

I have a little boy, younger than you, who knows six Psalms by heart: and when you ask him which he would rather have, a gingerbread-nut to eat or a verse of a Psalm to learn, he says: 'Oh! the verse of a Psalm! angels sing Psalms;' says he, 'I wish to be a little angel here below;' he then gets two nuts in recompense for his infant piety.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)