Meaning & use
drone
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Meanings
nouncountable
An aircraft with no pilot on board, flown by remote control or by its own computer.
Grammar: Countable: a drone, two drones.
Patterns
- fly a drone
The farmer uses a drone to check the crops.
Photographers now use a drone to film the coastline.
The airport closed because a drone had been seen near the runway.
nounsingular
A continuous low humming or buzzing sound.
Grammar: Usually singular and followed by of: the drone of the engine.
Patterns
- the drone of something
The drone of the air conditioner made her sleepy.
We fell asleep to the distant drone of traffic.
The bagpipes played above a steady drone.
nouncountablebiologyfigurative
A male honeybee, which does not gather food or sting and mates with the queen; also, figuratively, a person who does little useful work.
Grammar: In figurative use it is a disapproving word for a lazy or dull worker.
Only the queen lays eggs; the drones exist to mate.
He felt like a corporate drone, shuffling the same papers each day.
In autumn the workers push the drones out of the hive.
verbintransitive
To make a continuous low humming sound.
Grammar: No object; often followed by a preposition: a plane droned overhead.
Patterns
- something drones overhead
- something drones on
A plane droned overhead all afternoon.
The refrigerator droned in the empty kitchen.
Bees droned among the lavender.
verbphrasal verbdisapproving
To talk for a long time in a flat, dull voice that makes people lose interest.
Grammar: Almost always drone on, often with about.
Patterns
- drone on about something
- drone on and on
The speaker droned on for an hour about budgets.
My uncle droned on about his old job while we tried to eat.
I could hear the teacher droning from the next room.
Word forms
| plural | drones |
|---|---|
| third person singular | drones |
| past tense | droned |
| past participle | droned |
| -ing form | droning |
Common combinations
- fly a drone
- You need a permit to fly a drone here.
- drone footage
- The documentary included drone footage of the glacier.
- the drone of
- The drone of the engines filled the cabin.
- drone on
- Please don't let him drone on again.
- drone strike
- The report described a drone strike in the region.
- drone operator
- A drone operator inspected the bridge.
Synonyms and how they differ
- hum
- Hum is softer and often pleasant, while drone is lower, longer and sometimes tiresome.
- buzz
- Buzz is higher and sharper, like an insect, and drone is deeper and more steady.
- UAV
- UAV is the formal technical abbreviation for an unmanned aerial vehicle, used in military and official contexts.
- ramble
- Ramble suggests wandering off the topic, whereas drone on stresses the dull sound of the voice.
Word family
- droning adjective
- making a long dull humming sound
- droner noun
- someone who drones on, rare
- quadcopter noun
- a common type of small drone with four rotors
Commonly confused: drone or drawn?
drone vs drawn
Drawn sounds nothing like drone in American speech and is the past participle of draw; learners sometimes mix up the vowels.
Practice
Which sentence uses drone to mean talk in a boring voice?
Choose one answer.
Droned on means kept speaking in a dull way. The first is an aircraft, the second a humming sound and the fourth a male bee.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “drone”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.