adjectiveadverb

auswendig

by heart

So gut gelernt, dass man etwas ohne Hilfe sagen oder machen kann.

Definition & meaning

Auswendig means by heart or from memory: knowing or saying something without looking at a written source.

ein Gedicht auswendig können — to know a poem by heart
die Telefonnummer auswendig aufsagen — to recite the phone number from memory

Grammar & Word origin

Auswendig is an adverb and is invariable. It commonly appears with verbs such as lernen , können and aufsagen .

The word is formed from aus and wendig , which is related to wenden (“to turn”). Historically, it had the sense of “from the outside”; today it chiefly means “from memory.”

Synonyms & antonyms

im Kopf — “in one’s head”; a general way to say something is remembered.
aus dem Kopf — “from memory”; very close in meaning to auswendig, often used when recalling or calculating without looking something up.
im Schlaf — literally “in one’s sleep”; colloquially, it means knowing something extremely well.

There is no exact antonym. vom Blatt (“from the page”) describes reading from a text rather than reciting from memory, while ablesen means “to read off” a written source.