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drone

UK/dɹəʊn/ US/dɹoʊn/ fairly common slang uk
noun (5) verb (2)

noun

1.

stingless male bee in a colony of social bees (especially honeybees) whose sole function is to mate with the queen

2.
3.

someone who takes more time than necessary; someone who lags behind

Synonyms
4.

an aircraft without a pilot that is operated by remote control

Synonyms
5.

verb

1.

make a monotonous low dull sound

  • “The harmonium was droning on”
2.

talk in a monotonous voice

Synonyms

Origin

From Middle English drane, dron, drone, from Old English drān, drǣn, from Proto-West Germanic *drānu, from Proto-Germanic *drenô, *drēnuz (“drone”), from Proto-Indo-European *dʰreh₁n- (“bee, drone, hornet”). Cognates Cognate with Saterland Frisian Droane (“drone”), Dutch dar (“drone”), German Drohne (“drone”), Limburgish dreen, Droon (“drone”), Danish, Norwegian Bokmål, and Norwegian Nynorsk drone (“drone”), Swedish drönare (“drone”); also Belarusian тру́цень (trúcjenʹ, “drone”), Bulgarian търтей (tărtej, “drone”), Czech trubec (“drone”), Macedonian трут (trut, “drone”), Polish trąd, trut, truteń (“drone”), Russian and Ukrainian тру́тень (trútenʹ, “drone”), Serbo-Croatian тру̑т, trȗt (“drone”), Slovak trúd (“drone”), Slovene trot (“drone”). The etymology of the sense of "remote-controlled aircraft" is disputed; theories include early military UAVs dumbly flying on preset paths.

Phrases

  • alimony drone
  • combat drone
  • drone fly
  • drone metal
  • drone on
  • drone wall
  • office drone
  • suicide drone

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WordNet 2.1 (Princeton University). Wiktionary (CC BY-SA). CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. WordNet 2.1 Copyright Princeton University. All rights reserved. Wiktionary content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Licence.