drone
1 (drōn)
[Middle English, from Old English drān.]
noun
- A male bee, especially a honeybee, that is characteristically stingless, performs no work, and produces no honey. Its only function is to mate with the queen bee.
- An idle person who lives off others; a loafer.
- A person who does tedious or menial work; a drudge: “undervalued drones who labored in obscurity” (Caroline Bates)
- A pilotless aircraft operated by remote control.
drone
2 (drōn)
[From drone1 (from the bee's humming sound).]
verb: droned, dron·ing, drones.
intransitive verb
- To make a continuous low dull humming sound: “Somewhere an electric fan droned without end” (William Styron)
- To speak in a monotonous tone: The lecturer droned on for hours.
- To pass or act in a monotonous way.
transitive verb
- To utter in a monotonous low tone: “The mosquitoes droned their angry chant” (W. Somerset Maugham)
noun
- A continuous low humming or buzzing sound.
- Music
- Any of the pipes of a bagpipe that lack finger holes and produce a single tone.
- A long sustained tone.
- Any of various instruments that produce only a constant pitch.