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.

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.