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What is the difference between drone and robot?

drone | robot |

As nouns the difference between drone and robot

is that drone is a male bee or wasp, which does not work but can fertilise the queen while robot is a machine built to carry out some complex task or group of tasks, especially one which can be programmed.

As a verb drone

is to produce a low-pitched hum or buzz.

drone

English

(wikipedia drone)

Etymology 1

From (etyl) drone, from (etyl) . In sense "unmanned aircraft", due to early military UAVs dumbly flying on preset paths. Flying Robots 101: Everything You Need To Know About Drones, Kelsey D. Atherton, March 7, 2013

Noun

(en noun)
  • A male bee or wasp, which does not work but can fertilise the queen.
  • * Dryden
  • All with united force combine to drive / The lazy drones from the laborious hive.
  • Someone who doesn't work; a lazy person, an idler.
  • * 1624 , John Smith, Generall Historie , in Kupperman 1988, p. 117:
  • 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.
  • * Burton
  • By living as a drone , to be an unprofitable and unworthy member of so noble and learned a society.
  • A remotely controlled aircraft, an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV).
  • * {{quote-magazine, title=An internet of airborne things, date=2012-12-01, volume=405, issue=8813, page=3 (Technology Quarterly), magazine= citation
  • , passage=A farmer could place an order for a new tractor part by text message and pay for it by mobile money-transfer. A supplier many miles away would then take the part to the local matternet station for airborne dispatch via drone .}}
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-07, author= Ed Pilkington
  • , volume=188, issue=26, page=6, magazine=(The Guardian Weekly) , title= ‘Killer robots’ should be banned in advance, UN told , passage=In his submission to the UN, [Christof] Heyns points to the experience of drones . Unmanned aerial vehicles were intended initially only for surveillance, and their use for offensive purposes was prohibited, yet once strategists realised their perceived advantages as a means of carrying out targeted killings, all objections were swept out of the way.}}
    Strikes from drones take many innocent lives.
    Usage notes
    In sense "unmanned aircraft", primarily used informally of military aircraft or consumer radio controlled quadcopters, without precise definition.
    Hyponyms
    *Predator drone *Reaper drone
    See also
    * UAV

    Etymology 2

    From (etyl) .

    Verb

    (dron)
  • To produce a low-pitched hum or buzz.
  • To speak in a monotone way.
  • Noun

    (en noun)
  • A low-pitched hum or buzz.
  • * 1908 ,
  • He chanted as he flew and the car responded with sonorous drone .
  • (rft-sense) One who performs menial or tedious work; a drudge.
  • One of the fixed-pitch pipes on a bagpipe.
  • A genre of music similar to that of noise.
  • A humming or deep murmuring sound.
  • * Longfellow
  • The monotonous drone of the wheel.

    References

    Anagrams

    * ----

    robot

    English

    (wikipedia robot)

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A machine built to carry out some complex task or group of tasks, especially one which can be programmed.
  • * 2010 , Tim Webb, The Guardian , 16 May 2010:
  • It's painfully slow and complex work which has never been attempted before in these conditions: the small box-shaped robots , equipped with two claws, are operating in almost freezing water 5,000ft below the surface, in pitch black and strong currents.
  • (chiefly, science fiction) An intelligent mechanical being designed to look like a human or other creature, and usually made from metal.
  • * 2010 , Tom Chivers and Iain McDiarmid, The Telegraph , 26 Jan 2010:
  • The robots in Dick's novel, loosely adapted by Ridley Scott into the film Blade Runner, were so similar to humans that when they went rogue, trained bounty hunters were called in to perform psychological tests to see whether suspected androids lacked human empathy.
  • (figuratively) A person who does not seem to have any emotions.
  • * Murray N. Rothbard, Making Economic Sense (page xiv)
  • Yet surely he was a humorless robot of a man, spewing forth lonely and bitter critiques of all those lesser mortals with whom he could not identify.
  • (South Africa) A traffic light (from earlier robot policeman ).
  • (surveying) A theodolite which follows the movements of a prism and can be used by a one-man crew.
  • A style of dance popular in disco whereby the dancer impersonates the movement of a robot
  • Synonyms

    * See

    Hypernyms

    * automaton

    Hyponyms

    * android

    Derived terms

    * bot * -bot * robotic * robotics * robo-

    See also

    * artificial intelligence * computer * cyborg * domotics * pedipulator * robot revolution South African English English terms derived from fiction ----