drone
noun/drəʊn/
/drəʊn/
- an aircraft without a pilot, or a small flying device, controlled from the ground and used for taking photographs, dropping bombs, delivering goods, etc.
- aerial/surveillance drones
- The film crew got some breathtaking footage from their drone.
- Unmanned drones have replaced pilots for many of the missions in aerial warfare.
- Drone strikes killed 20 people in rebel-held areas.
- Get ready for a future where drones are delivering our packages.
- [usually singular] a continuous low noise
- the distant drone of traffic
- the continuous drone of the engine
Oxford Collocations Dictionaryadjective- low
- distant
- constant
- …
- hear
- with a drone
- drone of
- [usually singular] a continuous low sound made by some musical instruments, for example the bagpipes, over which other notes are played or sung; the part of the instrument that makes this noise
- a male bee that does not work compare queen bee, worker
- a person who is lazy and gives nothing to society while others work
- The medieval lord of the manor was what some today would call a drone.
Word OriginOld English drān, drǣn ‘male bee’, from a West Germanic verb meaning ‘resound, boom’; related to Dutch dreunen ‘to drone’, German dröhnen ‘to roar’, and Swedish dröna ‘to drowse’.
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drone