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Fine Dictionary

drone

droʊn
WordNet
Interesting fact
The sole purpose of a drone bee is to mate with the queen bee
  1. (v) drone
    talk in a monotonous voice
  2. (v) drone
    make a monotonous low dull sound "The harmonium was droning on"
  3. (n) drone
    stingless male bee in a colony of social bees (especially honeybees) whose sole function is to mate with the queen
  4. (n) drone
    a pipe of the bagpipe that is tuned to produce a single continuous tone
  5. (n) drone
    an aircraft without a pilot that is operated by remote control
  6. (n) drone
    an unchanging intonation
  7. (n) drone
    someone who takes more time than necessary; someone who lags behind
Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary
Interesting fact
Between 20,000 and 60,000 bees live in a single hive. The queen bee lays nearly 1,500 eggs a day and lives for up to 2 years. The drone, whose only job is to mate with the queen bee, has a lifespan of around 24 days—he has no sting. Worker bees - all sterile females - usually work themselves to death within 40 days, collecting pollen and nectar. Worker bees will fly p to 9 miles to find pollen and nectar, flying at speeds as fast as 15 mph.
  1. Drone
    A humming or deep murmuring sound. "The monotonous drone of the wheel."
  2. Drone
    (Mus) A monotonous bass, as in a pastoral composition.
  3. Drone
    One who lives on the labors of others; a lazy, idle fellow; a sluggard. "By living as a drone ,to be an unprofitable and unworthy member of so noble and learned a society."
  4. Drone
    To love in idleness; to do nothing. "Race of droning kings."
  5. Drone
    To utter or make a low, dull, monotonous, humming or murmuring sound. "Where the beetle wheels his droning flight."
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
  1. drone
    To roar; bellow.
  2. drone
    To give forth a monotonous, unvaried tone; utter a dull humming sound; hum or buzz, as a beetle or a bagpipe.
  3. drone
    To use a dull, monotonous tone: as, he drones in his reading.
  4. drone
    To give forth or utter in a monotonous, dull tone: as, he drones his sentences.
  5. (n) drone
    A monotonous, continued tone or sound; a humming: as, the drone of a bee.
  6. (n) drone
    In music: A pipe in the bagpipe which gives out a continuous and invariable tone.
  7. (n) drone
    A drone-bass.
  8. (n) drone
    The male of the honey-bee. It is smaller than the queen bee, but larger than the working bee. The drones make no honey, but after living a few weeks and impregnating the queen they are killed or driven from the hive by the workers. See bee.
  9. (n) drone
    Hence An idler; a sluggard; one who lives on the labor of others.
  10. drone
    To live in idleness.
  11. (n) drone
    The tone emitted by the drone of a bagpipe.
Chambers's Twentieth Century Dictionary
  1. (n) Drone
    drōn the male of the honey-bee: one who lives on the labour of others, like the drone-bee: a lazy, idle fellow
  2. (v.i) Drone
    drōn to make a low humming sound
  3. (n) Drone
    the bass-pipe of a bagpipe
Quotations
Charles Dickens
This is a world of action, and not for moping and droning in.
Charles Dickens
Etymology

Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary Cf. (for sense 1) D. dreunen, G. dröhnen, Icel. drynja, to roar, drynr, a roaring, Sw. dröna, to bellow, drone, Dan. dröne, Goth. drunjus, sound, Gr. dirge, to cry aloud, Skr. dhran, to sound. Cf. Drone (n.)

Usage in the news

BOSTON (AP) — For anyone who's ever been tired of listening to someone drone on and on and on, two Japanese researchers have the answer. gloucestertimes.com

The MATA Festival Brings Brooklyn's Drones And Whirs To Roulette. villagevoice.com

Drone Czar Hit by Surgical Journalistic Strike. theatlantic.com

CNN gets rare up-close look at Predator drones. cnn.com

CNN's Brent Sadler stands at the airfield, while a drone targets him from above. cnn.com

For hours, she records the subterranean drone of the ice thawing in the strangely warm winter. citypages.com

South Korea developing ' kamikaze ' attack drone. foxnews.com

A suicide drone capable of a strike in North Korea, is under development in South Korea. foxnews.com

Underwater kamikaze drones rushed to the Gulf to deal with Iranian mines. globalpost.com

The Strait of Hormuz, where the US is sending underwater drones in case of Iranian counter-economic attack. globalpost.com

Deploys Kamikaze Drones to Attack Afghan Taliban Targets. businessweek.com

Pakistan keeps Khyber Pass closed as US strikes drone on. csmonitor.com

Download Supreme Cuts' Remix of Physical Therapy's 'Drone On' WIth Jamie Krasner . spin.com

Houston-area lawman tells Congress the feds refused to approve emergency drone flight. blog.chron.com

INTERVIEWS Hear ' Ley Lines,' Dubby Drones Via David Daniell and Tortoise's Douglas McCombs. spin.com

Usage in scientific papers

Also, in this regime one obtains the following picture for asymptotics of the probabilities at t → +∞: all the ‘activated’ (i.e., with ρn 6= 0) probabilities with the maximal value of the decay parameters rise droningly, whereas all the remaining probabilities fall to the zero ones.
Arrow of time in generalized quantum theory and its classical limit dynamics

Usage in literature

The regular droning of the old clock sounded distinctly in the stillness. "The Voice of the People" by Ellen Glasgow

Knocks on the wall, a sawing noise, and a droning and a wailing are all we have heard. "The Alleged Haunting of B---- House" by Various

The throb accelerated as distance dimmed the roar, until once more the droning thrum dominated. "Skyrider" by B. M. Bower

Other peasants danced slowly, in a circle, to the drone of the somniferous Servian bagpipe. "Servia, Youngest Member of the European Family" by Andrew Archibald Paton

Already from the outside one caught a droning voice. "Romance" by Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer

There were a few swift motions, a pop distinctly heard above the drone of the orchestra. "Ben Blair" by Will Lillibridge

It droned and droned, very gradually becoming louder. "Operation Terror" by William Fitzgerald Jenkins

Now it was the Swifts' top-secret rocket base, tightly guarded by drone planes and radar. "Tom Swift and The Visitor from Planet X" by Victor Appleton

Through it all, now soft, now loud, sounds the drone of the war-drum. "Patriotic Plays and Pageants for Young People" by Constance D'Arcy Mackay

It came droning, droning up the forty-odd thousand miles from the planet. "This World Is Taboo" by Murray Leinster

Usage in poetry
Tumbled are the piled glooms
And the weavers stir:
Once again the wild looms
Drone and whir.
This world is not for drones!
The right to live each owns;
But he to earn that right
Must work with all his might.
"Is it a chapel bell that fills
The air with its low tone?"
"Thou hear'st the tinkle of the rills,
The insect's vesper drone."
Far worthier men had vainly sought
To win her for herself alone;
What potent spell could Love have wrought
To draw her to a tactless drone?
The pastoral bleat, the drone of bees,
The flail-beat chiming far away,
The cattle-low, at shut of day,
The voice of God in leaf and breeze;
Ye pampered drones! pursuit is vain,
Give o'er the godless, cruel strife!
As well o'ertake the hurricane:
Despair and love fly there for life.