drongo
1 Americannoun
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drongos
plural
noun
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drongos
plural
noun
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Also called: drongo shrike. any insectivorous songbird of the family Dicruridae, of the Old World tropics, having a glossy black plumage, a forked tail, and a stout bill
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slang a slow-witted person
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informal a new recruit in the Royal Australian Air Force
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of drongo1
Borrowed into English from Malagasy around 1835–45
Origin of drongo2
1920–25; probably to be identified with drongo 1, as a name for the Australian bird Dicrurus bracteata; though often popularly alleged to have originated from the name of an unsuccessful racehorse of the 1920s
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
All in all this is a pretty feeble book, and its author is a bit of a drongo.
From The Guardian ● Jul. 10, 2013
We caught curl-crested manucode, hooded butcherbirds, helmeted friarbirds, spangled drongo, and several other species we hadn’t seen since working on the mainland or the D’Entrecasteaux Islands.
From New York Times ● Nov. 9, 2011
Raw prawn, to come the, v.: to delude or hoodwink a drongo or galah.
From Time Magazine Archive
Galah, n.: small pink-and-gray cockatoo, noted for its stupidity; hence, a drongo.
From Time Magazine Archive
This drongo was seen in areas where the trees had been cut, sitting on limbs and darting out after insects.
From Birds from North Borneo University of Kansas Publications, Museum of Natural History, Volume 17, No. 8, pp. 377-433, October 27, 1966 by Max C. Thompson
The 39-year-old started the project in 2018 as a joke, turning Russian princesses into "sheilas" and princes into "drongos", but is now on the cusp of signing a book deal.
From BBC ● Nov. 14, 2025
Everywhere we walked people greeted us, while overhead Eclectus parrots, sulfur-crested cockatoos, and spangled drongos were calling.
From New York Times ● Sep. 19, 2011
During her morning strolls around the edges of the plantation, Katy, armed with her “Pocket Guide to the Birds of the Indian Subcontinent,” spotted greater racket-tailed drongos, white-cheeked barbets and Malabar parakeets, among other species.
From New York Times ● Dec. 31, 2010
Which just shows there's probably no limit to the number of poor suffering drongos who'll sit back and have the Box come the raw prawn on them.
From Time Magazine Archive
Masked wood-swallows, swiftlets, spangled drongos, leaden fly-eaters, barred-shouldered fly-eaters, hurry to the circus to desolate it with hungry swoops.
From Tropic Days by E. J. (Edmund James) Banfield
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
