drone

noun

1. A male ant, bee, or wasp, which does not work but can fertilize the queen.

   “All with united force combine to drive / The lazy drones from the laborious hive.”

2. (archaic)One who does not work; a lazy person, an idler.

   “SHYLOCK: / The patch is kind enough, but a huge feeder, / Snail-slow in profit, and he sleeps by day / More than the wild-cat; drones hive not with me; / Therefore I part with him; and part with him / To one what I would have him help to waste / His borrowed purse. […]”

   “he that gathereth not every day as much as I doe, the next day shall be set beyond the river, and be banished from the Fort as a drone, till he amend his conditions or starve.”

   “by living as a drone, to be an unprofitable or unworthy member of so learned and noble a society”

3. One who performs menial or tedious work.
4. Any remotely operated or autonomous vehicle for land, sea, air, or space.

   “aerial drones”

   “sea drones”

   “land drones”

   “space drones”

5. Any remotely operated or autonomous vehicle for land, sea, air, or space.

   “Near-synonyms: UAV, UAS, OPV, RPV, FPV”

   “Several images of the compound were obtained via a drone overflight.”

   “One team member launched a camera drone over the Third Pole.”

   “An atomic tested Flying Fortress will make a nonstop flight from Florida, and from the time the first engine kicks over until the last propeller stops spinning at Bolling, no hands will touch the controls. A radio controlled drone, it will make the journey with its mother ship, another Fortress, as part of the Experimental Guided Missiles Group contribution to the demonstration.”

   “The United Nations is setting up a unit to investigate American drone strikes and other targeted killings of terrorist suspects, Ben Emmerson, the United Nations special rapporteur on counterterrorism and human rights, said Thursday.”

6. Any remotely operated or autonomous vehicle for land, sea, air, or space.

   “Near-synonyms: ROV, ROUV, UUV, AUV”

   “The Apex boat is a small radio-controlled craft which tows, at an angle, two Drone boats. The latter are small craft filled with explosives to be detonated from the control radio of the Apex boat.”

   “Firefish, a drone boat, is the second radio-controlled target used by the detachment. A 17-foot fiber glass craft, it weighs 1700 pounds and operates from the support ship by remote control at a range of up to five miles using tracking radar.”

   “There, in the heart of a desert target range, operates a fleet of remote-control QM-56 mobile land drones, more familiarly described as modified tanks.”

   “"Libya obtained a remote controlled explosive boat system consisting of 30-knot drone boats packed with high explosives controlled from a cabin cruiser type craft," Butts told the seapower and strategic and critical materials subcomittee.”

7. Any remotely operated or autonomous vehicle for land, sea, air, or space.

   “Near-synonyms: USV (remotely operated), ASV (autonomous)”

8. Any remotely operated or autonomous vehicle for land, sea, air, or space.
9. (Uganda)A Toyota HiAce or a similar van, especially one used by Ugandan state agents to kidnap opposition members.

   “The van is locally referred to as "a drone" because it is compact and stable under extreme conditions. It is also very fast. Technically though, it is a Toyota Hiace, which is usually used for commercial purposes.”

   “He has been arrested several times, transported in drone vans and brutalized in various detention facilities.”

   “The Toyota Hiace is a light commercial van that can be used as a minibus, a taxi, or even an ambulance. But in Uganda, the "drone" has a sinister reputation. Chris Atukwasize, a cartoonist at the Daily Monitor newspaper, dubbed it the #WheelsOfSteal and rendered it as a skull: brake lights dripping blood, its front grille a row of teeth, and hands plastered behind its tinted back windows, pleading for help.”

   “Earlier this week, Deputy Speaker of Parliament Thomas Tayebwa summoned the Prime Minister Robinah Nabbanja together with the Ministers of Security and Internal Affairs and parliamentary whips to address the said return of drones on the streets.”

   “A minibus van, often numberless and dubbed the 'drone', gained notoriety for kidnaps and disappearances.”

10. (derogatory, slang)One who lacks the ability to think critically and independently, especially one who follows a group blindly; a non-player character.

    “The billionaire-friendly media drones and frenzied multiculturalist politicians are imposing "vibrant" third world social violence onto Australians, and Australians don't get to vote against this "bipartisan" conspiracy. The hyperactive globalist politicians and media drones might find themselves facing firing squads if they don't change their corrupt ways.”

    “Instead, you got into lockstep with all the other hive-mind libtard drones and voted for the slimy corrupt scumbag bitch who was under *two* active Congressional investigations (a first in history, BTW), Hitlery Clinton.”

11. In dronification kink, one who is mindless and obedient to a dominant, characterized by a detached and robotic identity and an anonymous appearance, typically composed of a latex suit and gas mask.
12. A low-pitched hum or buzz.

    “He chanted as he flew and the car responded with sonorous drone.”

13. One of the fixed-pitch pipes on a bagpipe.
14. (uncountable)A genre of music that uses repeated lengthy droning sounds.
15. A humming or deep murmuring sound.

    “The monotonous drone of the wheel.”

16. (UK, slang, uncountable)The drug mephedrone.

verb

1. (colloquial, transitive)To kill or destroy with a drone (unmanned aircraft), or with a missile fired by a drone.

   “"I have a lot of advice for him," Ayers said in the interview, aired Tuesday night. "I want him to stop droning people. I want him to close Guantanamo. I want universal healthcare. Don't you think we deserve universal healthcare? Seriously."”

   ““He won’t be waging wars all the world ― he’ll be waging ‘warsuits,’” Noah said. “Droning people with subpoenas all over the globe.””

   “Even Yemen's Houthi rebels can fuel global inflation by droning ships.”

2. To produce a low-pitched hum or buzz.
3. To speak in a monotone.

name

1. A surname.