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Drone   /droʊn/   Listen
noun
Drone  n.  
1.
(Zool.) The male of bees, esp. of the honeybee. It gathers no honey. See Honeybee. "All with united force combine to drive The lazy drones from the laborious hive."
2.
One who lives on the labors of others; a lazy, idle fellow; a sluggard. "By living as a drone,to be an unprofitable and unworthy member of so noble and learned a society."
3.
That which gives out a grave or monotonous tone or dull sound; as:
(a)
A drum. (Obs.) Halliwell.
(b)
The part of the bagpipe containing the two lowest tubes, which always sound the key note and the fifth.
4.
A humming or deep murmuring sound. "The monotonous drone of the wheel."
5.
(Mus.) A monotonous bass, as in a pastoral composition.


verb
Drone  v. i.  (past & past part. droned; pres. part. droning)  
1.
To utter or make a low, dull, monotonous, humming or murmuring sound. "Where the beetle wheels his droning flight."
2.
To love in idleness; to do nothing. "Race of droning kings."





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


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"Drone" Quotes from Famous Books



... Tuscan valley," the philosopher proceeded, harking back to the book which had arrived by the evening's mail. "Florence was a devil—Florence was divine. They raised geniuses and devils and martyrs: the most cloud-topping geniuses, the worst devils, the most saintly martyrs. But better than being a drone in a Florence pension is all this"—with a wave of his hand to the garden and the stars—"which I owe to Mary and the little speck on her lungs which brought us here after—after we had found that we had ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... wean ourselves—shall we never heed the teachings of Philosophy (unless perchance they have been sounding in our ears like and enchanter's drone):— ...
— The Golden Sayings of Epictetus • Epictetus
... and, what is still more delightful, a year of equality: the glutton now eats the delicacies for which he longed when he could not purchase them, and the drunkard has the pleasure of wine, without the cost: the drone lives awhile without work, and the shopkeeper, in the flow of money, raises his price: the mechanick, that trembled at the presence of sir Joseph, now bids him come again for an answer: and the poacher, whose gun has been seized, now finds an opportunity to reclaim ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson
... vigor; but to be nearly refined without being quite refined is as harrowing as singing just a little off the key. To be far off the key is to be in another key, but to smite at a note and muff it is excruciation. Better far to drone middle C than to aim at high C and miss it by ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... The organist has sailed into his set piece; the choir advances; follows the bride looking so lonely that I long to comfort her and remind her of my egg stand; and, last of all, the pretty bridesmaids. The clergyman begins his drone. ...
— If I May • A. A. Milne


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