drone

¹ American  

[drohn] / droʊn /

noun

1. the male of the honeybee and other bees, stingless and making no honey.

2. 1. an uncrewed military aircraft or ship that can navigate autonomously, without human control or beyond the line of sight.

      We picked up the GPS signal of a U.S. spy drone.

      They used a radio-controlled drone to test the weapon in an isolated spot.

   2. (loosely) any uncrewed airborne device, especially a small one, that is guided remotely: used for industrial, commercial, and recreational purposes, such as photography and filming, delivery, mining, etc..

      The grocery company will test drones for home delivery and pickup.

3. a drudge.

   I don't want to be a drone who mindlessly does exactly what I'm told, but rather someone who asserts a little control in my work.

4. a person who lives on the labor of others; parasitic loafer.

   That lazy drone was asleep when he should have been weeding the garden.

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drone ² American  

[drohn] / droʊn /

verb (used without object)

drones, present (3rd person singular) droned, past participle, past droning present participle

1. to make a dull, continued, low, monotonous sound; hum; buzz.

2. to speak in a monotonous tone.

3. to proceed in a dull, monotonous manner (usually followed byon ).

   The meeting droned on for hours.

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verb (used with object)

drones, present (3rd person singular) droned, past participle, past droning present participle

1. to say in a dull, monotonous tone.

noun

1. Music.

   1. a continuous low tone produced by the bass pipes or bass strings of musical instruments.

   2. the pipes (especially of the bagpipe) or strings producing this tone.

   3. a bagpipe equipped with such pipes.

2. a monotonous low tone; humming or buzzing sound.

3. a person who speaks in a monotonous tone.

drone ¹ British  

/ drəʊn /

noun

1. a male bee in a colony of social bees, whose sole function is to mate with the queen

2. a person who lives off the work of others

3. a pilotless radio-controlled aircraft

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drone ² British  

/ drəʊn /

verb

1. (intr) to make a monotonous low dull sound; buzz or hum

2. to utter (words) in a monotonous tone, esp to talk without stopping

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noun

1. a monotonous low dull sound

2. music

   1. a sustained bass note or chord of unvarying pitch accompanying a melody

   2. ( as modifier )

      a drone bass

3. music one of the single-reed pipes in a set of bagpipes, used for accompanying the melody played on the chanter

4. a person who speaks in a low monotonous tone

drone Scientific  

/ drōn /

1. A male bee, especially a honeybee whose only function is to fertilize the queen. Drones have no stingers, do no work, and do not produce honey.

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drone Cultural  

1. In military usage, a pilotless aircraft used for reconnaissance and, more recently, for launching aerial attacks.

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• droner
  noun
• droning
  adjective
• dronish
  adjective
• droningly
  adverb

Inflected Forms

Participles

• droning
  present
• droned
  past

Conjugated Forms

Present

• drone
  simple
• drones
  simple
• have droned
  perfect
• has droned
  perfect
• am droning
  progressive
• are droning
  progressive
• is droning
  progressive
• have been droning
  perfect progressive
• has been droning
  perfect progressive

Past

• droned
  simple
• had droned
  perfect
• was droning
  progressive
• were droning
  progressive
• had been droning
  perfect progressive

Future

• will drone
  simple
• will have droned
  perfect
• will be droning
  progressive
• will have been droning
  perfect progressive

Etymology

Origin of drone¹

First recorded before 1000; 1945–50 drone ¹ for def. 2a; Middle English drone, drane, Old English dran, dron; akin to Old High German treno, German Drohne

Origin of drone²

First recorded in 1490–1500; from drone ¹; compare Middle English drounen “to boom, roar,” Icelandic drynja “to bellow,” Gothic drunjus “noise”

Explanation

To drone is to make a low, continuous noise that sounds like humming or buzzing. On summer nights, you might hear cicadas drone, and on snowy winter mornings, hear your neighbor's snow blower drone. Like animals and machines, people drone too, their voices sounding dull and tedious: "When my history teacher drones on, it's hard to stay awake." Drone is also a noun, meaning the monotonous sound itself, like the drone of a boring lecture; or a male worker bee; or a person who's as unambitious as a worker bee. Finally, there are the drones that fly by remote control, doing surveillance, gathering weather information, and occasionally firing missiles for the military.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

drone drones droned droning

Trump has been impressed by Ukraine’s resilience and its drone industry, which has grown to producing millions of drones a year.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 28, 2026

Two people had to be rescued after trying to film a wildfire in Wales with a drone.

From BBC ● Jul. 27, 2026

Pakistan, which has been mediating a resolution to the Middle East war, condemned the drone attacks, saying they "pose a grave threat to peace and stability" in the Middle East.

From Barron's ● Jul. 27, 2026

The Ministry of Defence has already given thousands of the devices to Ukrainian forces to bolster their drone operations.

From BBC ● Jul. 26, 2026

In time, the locust drone of the school board gave over to the mourning of doves in the eaves.

From "The Teacher’s Funeral" by Richard Peck

He adds that Iran's "capacity to produce, at scale, the kinds of missiles, drones and other weapons systems" it needs has been largely destroyed.

From BBC ● Jul. 27, 2026

American air defences intercepted over 1,700 Iranian drones and ballistic missiles over the same period.

From BBC ● Jul. 27, 2026

Flying at higher altitudes reduces the payload the drones can carry.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 26, 2026

The size of a tablet computer and attached to drones, the military-grade jammers can hinder Russian air defence systems from tracking and targeting such weapons in-flight, Downing Street said.

From Barron's ● Jul. 26, 2026

Class drones on and I wonder how much of a jerk it makes me to expect that Millie would’ve been humiliated.

From "Dumplin'" by Julie Murphy

At one event, in which Oz was interviewed by Dean Cain, an actor who played Superman in a 1990s television show, about 50 people listened in as Oz droned on about an anti-fraud task force.

From Slate ● Jul. 1, 2026

Then as he droned on like a dentist drill hitting bone, he began to sound like a South Carolina auctioneer at a county fair.

From Salon ● Dec. 19, 2025

That excitement was not evident inside the grand ballroom at the JW Marriott in Houston Sunday, as Harbaugh droned on about nature documentaries he shows his team on the day of a game.

From Seattle Times ● Jan. 7, 2024

Canned music droned from the telephone as Jessica Sanchez waited, fidgeting and shifting her pregnant belly in her chair at the Santa Monica community health center.

From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 25, 2023

He was sitting in his usual spot, sketching, while a red-faced man droned on and on.

From "Willodeen" by Katherine Applegate

“At any given point, the pike was a symphony of spinning wheels, creaking cabs, clopping hooves, and droning livestock,” Mr. Crytzer writes.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 24, 2026

"It is a very low humming, droning, pulsating noise. It's incredibly intrusive and distressing," she said.

From BBC ● Apr. 28, 2025

He is so incredible with Trane, but he has this droning depth of this like voodoo trance that he gets into on the bass.

From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 6, 2025

Lynch follows Jack Nance’s Henry Spencer as he tries to care for his newborn child, while the droning industrial noise of Henry’s urban surroundings only magnifies his loneliness.

From Salon ● Jan. 25, 2025

There were harsher plants as well—spiked jimson weeds and poisonous dark pokeberries, and bees droning everywhere.

From "Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH" by Robert C. O'Brien

Related Words

• purr
• whirr