drone

Meanings

Noun

• A male ant, bee or wasp, which does not work but can fertilize the queen bee.
• Someone who does not work; a lazy person, an idler.
• One who performs menial or tedious work.
• A remotely controlled aircraft, an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV).
• A low-pitched hum or buzz.
• One of the fixed-pitch pipes on a bagpipe.
• A genre of music that uses repeated lengthy droning sounds.
• A humming or deep murmuring sound.

Verb

• To kill with a missile fired by unmanned aircraft.
• To produce a low-pitched hum or buzz.
• To speak in a monotone way.

Origin

• From Middle English drane, from Old English drān, from Proto-West Germanic *drānu, from Proto-Germanic *drēniz, *drēnuz, *drenô, from Proto-Indo-European *dʰrēn- ("bee, drone, hornet").
• Cognate with:
• Dutch drone ("male bee or wasp"),
• Low German drone ("drone"),
• German Drohne, dialectal German Dräne, Trehne, Trene,
• Danish drone ("drone"),
• Swedish drönje, drönare.
• In sense “unmanned aircraft”, due to early military UAVs dumbly flying on preset paths. The verb sense derives from this sense.
• From Middle English drounen ("to roar, bellow"), from Proto-West Germanic *drunnjan, from Proto-Germanic *drunjaną ("to drone, roar, make a sound"), from Proto-Indo-European *dʰer- ("to roar, hum, drone").
• Cognate with Scots drune ("to drone, moan, complain"), Dutch dreunen ("to drone, boom, thud"), Low German drönen ("to drone, buzz, hum"), German dröhnen ("to roar, boom, rumble"), Danish drøne ("to roar, boom, peel out"), Swedish dröna ("to low, bellow, roar"), Icelandic drynja ("to roar").