drone

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /dɹəʊn/

• Audio (UK)

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• (General American) IPA^(key): /dɹoʊn/
• Rhymes: -əʊn

From Middle English drane, from Old English drān, from Proto-West Germanic *drānu, from Proto-Germanic *drēniz, *drēnuz, *drenô (“an insect, drone”), from Proto-Indo-European *dʰrēn- (“bee, drone, hornet”).

Cognate with:

• Dutch dar (“male bee or wasp”),
• Low German drone (“drone”),
• German Drohne, dialectal German Dräne, Trehne, Trene (“drone”),
• Danish drone (“drone”),
• Swedish drönje, drönare (“drone”).

In sense “unmanned aircraft”, due to early military UAVs dumbly flying on preset paths.[1] The verb sense derives from this sense.

drone (plural drones)

1. A male ant, bee or wasp, which does not work but can fertilize the queen bee.
   • 1697, Virgil, “The Fourth Book of the Georgics”, in John Dryden, transl., The Works of Virgil: Containing His Pastorals, Georgics, and Æneis. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], OCLC 403869432:

     All with united force combine to drive / The lazy drones from the laborious hive.

2. (now rare) Someone who does not work; a lazy person, an idler.
   • c. 1596–1598 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Merchant of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358, [Act II, scene v]:

     SHYLOCK:
     The patch is kind enough, but a huge feeder,
     Snail-slow in profit, and he sleeps by day
     More than the wild-cat; drones hive not with me;
     Therefore I part with him; and part with him
     To one what I would have him help to waste
     His borrowed purse. […]

   • 1624, John Smith, Generall Historie, in Kupperman 1988, p. 117:

     he that gathereth not every day as much as I doe, the next day shall be set beyond the river, and be banished from the Fort as a drone, till he amend his conditions or starve.

   • 1624, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], The Anatomy of Melancholy: […], 2nd edition, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Printed by John Lichfield and James Short, for Henry Cripps, OCLC 54573970:

     by living as a drone, to be an unprofitable or unworthy member of so learned and noble a society

3. One who performs menial or tedious work.

   Synonym: drudge

4. (aviation) A remotely controlled aircraft, an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV).

   Synonyms: UAV, UAS

   Hyponym: quadcopter

   Several images of the compound were obtained via a drone overflight.

   One team member launched a camera drone over the Third Pole.

   • 2008, BioWare, Mass Effect, Redwood City: Electronic Arts, →ISBN, OCLC 246633669, PC, scene: Vehicles: Combat Drones Codex entry:

     All modern armies rely on veritable fleets of drones for routine soldiering (static garrisons, patrols, etc.). The use of drones in non-critical duties keeps manpower need down and reduces casualties in low intensity conflicts. Less advanced races and cultures with less sensitivity to casualties have correspondingly fewer drones in their inventory. Drones are of little use in conventional open field battles, as they are poorly armed and armored.

   • 2012 October 25, Scott Shane, “Drone Strikes to Be Investigated”, in New York Times‎:

     The United Nations is setting up a unit to investigate American drone strikes and other targeted killings of terrorist suspects, Ben Emmerson, the United Nations special rapporteur on counterterrorism and human rights, said Thursday.

   • 2012 December 1, “An internet of airborne things”, in The Economist‎, volume 405, number 8813, page 3 (Technology Quarterly):

     A farmer could place an order for a new tractor part by text message and pay for it by mobile money-transfer. A supplier many miles away would then take the part to the local matternet station for airborne dispatch via drone.

   • 2013 June 7, Ed Pilkington, “‘Killer robots’ should be banned in advance, UN told”, in The Guardian Weekly‎, volume 188, number 26, page 6:

     In his submission to the UN, [Christof] Heyns points to the experience of drones. Unmanned aerial vehicles were intended initially only for surveillance, and their use for offensive purposes was prohibited, yet once strategists realised their perceived advantages as a means of carrying out targeted killings, all objections were swept out of the way.

   • 2017 October 17, Christina Caron, “After Drone Hits Plane in Canada, New Fears About Air Safety”, in New York Times‎:

     In April, as an Air Canada Jazz flight was landing at Trudeau Airport, a drone came so close the pilot was able to identify it as a quadcopter.

   • 2020 May 20, Paul Stephen, “NR beats floods to secure tracks to Drax”, in Rail, page 58, photo caption:

     NR made extensive use of drones, helicopters and a team of divers to inspect the flood-damaged section of embankment that forced the closure of one of the lines into Drax from February 6-April 20.

5. (Uganda) A Toyota HiAce or a similar van, especially one used by Ugandan state agents to kidnap opposition members.
   • 2021 February 4, Alex Mugasha, “Why Uganda's security agencies have fallen in love with the "Drone" van”, in Nile Post‎:

     The van is locally referred to as "a drone" because it is compact and stable under extreme conditions. It is also very fast. Technically though, it is a Toyota Hiace, which is usually used for commercial purposes.

   • 2021 February 4, Kakwenza Rukirabashaija, “Horror inside a kidnap drone”, in The Observer‎:

     He has been arrested several times, transported in drone vans and brutalized in various detention facilities.

   • 2021 March 3, Liam Taylor, “They came in plainclothes with guns: 'Abducted' by Uganda's army”, in Al Jazeera‎:

     The Toyota Hiace is a light commercial van that can be used as a minibus, a taxi, or even an ambulance. But in Uganda, the "drone" has a sinister reputation. Chris Atukwasize, a cartoonist at the Daily Monitor newspaper, dubbed it the #WheelsOfSteal and rendered it as a skull: brake lights dripping blood, its front grille a row of teeth, and hands plastered behind its tinted back windows, pleading for help.

   • 2022 October 2, Sam Waswa, “UPDF Probes Drone Raid at Journalist's Home”, in Chimp Reports‎:

     Earlier this week, Deputy Speaker of Parliament Thomas Tayebwa summoned the Prime Minister Robinah Nabbanja together with the Ministers of Security and Internal Affairs and parliamentary whips to address the said return of drones on the streets.

   • 2022 October 20, Albert K Awedoba, Andreas Mehler, Benedikt Kamski, David Sebudubudu, Africa Yearbook, volume 18, →ISBN, page 419:

     A minibus van, often numberless and dubbed the 'drone', gained notoriety for kidnaps and disappearances.

6. (chiefly Internet slang) A person without the ability to think critically and independently, especially one who follows a group blindly; a non-player character.
   • 2009 December 18, Benway (original non-Zionist), “Shocking Jewish faggot property pimp attack on Australia”, in aus.politics, Usenet‎:

     The billionaire-friendly media drones and frenzied
     multiculturalist politicians are imposing
     "vibrant" third world social violence onto
     Australians, and Australians don't get to vote
     against this "bipartisan" conspiracy. The
     hyperactive globalist politicians and media drones
     might find themselves facing firing squads if they
     don't change their corrupt ways.

   • 2011 September 2, corella, “What does it mean when gibbering media drones say that grotesque Asian-style "Stack and Pack" slums and plague immigration are vibrant?”, in aus.politics, Usenet‎:

   • 2017 January 19, The Party Of Trump (The Party For Winners), “Re: Clinton Cash”, in alt.checkmate, Usenet‎:

     Instead, you got into lockstep with all the other hive-mind libtard drones and voted for the slimy corrupt scumbag bitch who was under *two* active Congressional investigations (a first in history, BTW), Hitlery Clinton.

• In sense “unmanned aircraft”, primarily used informally of military aircraft or consumer radio controlled quadcopters, without precise definition.[1]

• (military): kamikaze drone

• → Asturian: dron
• → Polish: dron
• → Portuguese: drone
• → Spanish: dron

drone (third-person singular simple present drones, present participle droning, simple past and past participle droned)

1. (transitive, colloquial) To kill with a missile fired by unmanned aircraft.
   • 2014, Colin Campbell, “Bill Ayers To Obama: 'Stop Droning People'”, in Business Insider‎:

     "I have a lot of advice for him," Ayers said in the interview, aired Tuesday night. "I want him to stop droning people. I want him to close Guantanamo. I want universal healthcare. Don't you think we deserve universal healthcare? Seriously."

   • 2016, David Moye, “Trevor Noah: If Trump Is Elected, He’ll Wage ‘Warsuits’”, in Huffington Post‎:

     “He won’t be waging wars all the world ― he’ll be waging ‘warsuits,’” Noah said. “Droning people with subpoenas all over the globe.”

   • 2018, David Weigel, “The new ‘Dr. No’: Rep. Justin Amash, marooned in Congress”, in Washington Post‎:

     “Are we still droning people? Yeah,” he said. “Are we still running covert operations that weren’t authorized by Congress? Yeah. Is the government still spying on Americans without warrants? Without due process. Yeah. When some libertarians talk about the great accomplishments we’re seeing on foreign policy, I don’t know what they’re talking about. Reaching out to these guys is one thing, but you have to move down the court. [Trump] actually made it harder for us to have a good relationship with Russia.”

From Middle English drounen (“to roar, bellow”), from Proto-West Germanic *drunnjan, from Proto-Germanic *drunjaną (“to drone, roar, make a sound”), from Proto-Indo-European *dʰer- (“to roar, hum, drone”).

Cognate with Scots drune (“to drone, moan, complain”), Dutch dreunen (“to drone, boom, thud”), Low German drönen (“to drone, buzz, hum”), German dröhnen (“to roar, boom, rumble”), Danish drøne (“to roar, boom, peel out”), Swedish dröna (“to low, bellow, roar”), Icelandic drynja (“to roar”).

drone (third-person singular simple present drones, present participle droning, simple past and past participle droned)

1. To produce a low-pitched hum or buzz.
2. To speak in a monotone way.

• drone on

drone (plural drones)

1. A low-pitched hum or buzz.
   • 1908, Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows

     He chanted as he flew and the car responded with sonorous drone.

2. (music) One of the fixed-pitch pipes on a bagpipe.
3. (music, uncountable) A genre of music that uses repeated lengthy droning sounds.
4. A humming or deep murmuring sound.
   • 1847 November 1, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Evangeline, a Tale of Acadie, Boston, Mass.: William D. Ticknor & Company, OCLC 12526426, (please specify either |part=I or II):

     The monotonous drone of the wheel.

• drone (bee) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• drone (aircraft) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

• Doner, Roden, doner, nerdo, orned, redon, renod, ronde

Borrowed from English drone (“aircraft drone”). Doublette with dar (“male bee”), which descended from Middle Dutch, cf. Limburgish dreen.

• IPA^(key): /droːn/

• Audio

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• Hyphenation: drone
• Rhymes: -oːn

drone m (plural drones, diminutive droontje n)

1. a remotely controlled aircraft; a drone

• droneaanval

< English drone

• IPA^(key): /ˈdrone/, [ˈdro̞ne̞]
• Rhymes: -one
• Syllabification^(key): dro‧ne

drone

1. (Anglicism) drone (type of unmanned aircraft)

• drooni
• lennokki

From English drone.

• IPA^(key): /dʁon/

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• Audio (Switzerland)

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drone m (plural drones)

1. drone (unmanned aircraft)

Borrowed from English drone.

drone m (invariable)

1. drone (unmanned aircraft)

• derno, dreno, drenò, rendo, ronde

drone

1. Alternative form of drane

From Middle Low German drone (sense 1), and English drone (sense 2).

drone m (definite singular dronen, indefinite plural droner, definite plural dronene)

1. a drone (male bee)
2. a drone (radio-controlled pilotless aircraft)

• dronefly (aircraft)

• “drone” in The Bokmål Dictionary.

From Middle Low German drone (sense 1), and English drone (sense 2).

• IPA^(key): /ˈdruːnə/

drone m (definite singular dronen, indefinite plural dronar, definite plural dronane)

1. drone (male bee)
2. drone (unmanned aircraft)

• (male bee): hannbie
• (aircraft): dronefly

• “drone” in The Nynorsk Dictionary.

Borrowed from English drone.[1][2]

• Hyphenation: dro‧ne

drone m (plural drones)

1. drone (unmanned aircraft)

• dron

Unadapted borrowing from English drone.

• IPA^(key): /ˈdɾon/ [ˈd̪ɾõn]
• Rhymes: -on

drone m (plural drones)

1. drone

According to Royal Spanish Academy (RAE) prescriptions, unadapted foreign words should be written in italics in a text printed in roman type, and vice versa, and in quotation marks in a manuscript text or when italics are not available. In practice, this RAE prescription is not always followed.

• dron

Unadapted borrowing from English drone.

• IPA^(key): /ˈdɾon/

drone (definite accusative droneu, plural dronelar)

1. (aviation) An unmanned aerial vehicle; drone.

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