droning

drone ¹  (drn)

n.

1. A male bee, especially a honeybee, that is characteristically stingless, performs no work, and produces no honey. Its only function is to mate with the queen bee.

2. An idle person who lives off others; a loafer.

3. A person who does tedious or menial work; a drudge: "undervalued drones who labored in obscurity" (Caroline Bates).

4. A pilotless aircraft operated by remote control.

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[Middle English, from Old English drn.]

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drone ²  (drn)

v. droned, dron·ing, drones

v.intr.

1. To make a continuous low dull humming sound: "Somewhere an electric fan droned without end" (William Styron).

2. To speak in a monotonous tone: The lecturer droned on for hours.

3. To pass or act in a monotonous way.

v.tr.

To utter in a monotonous low tone: "The mosquitoes droned their angry chant" (W. Somerset Maugham).

n.

1. A continuous low humming or buzzing sound.

2. Music

a. Any of the pipes of a bagpipe that lack finger holes and produce a single tone.

b. A long sustained tone.

c. Any of various instruments that produce only a constant pitch.

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[From drone (from the bee's humming sound).]

Thesaurus

Noun

1.

droning - an unchanging intonation monotone, drone intonation, pitch contour, modulation - rise and fall of the voice pitch

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droning

adjective

1. humming, buzzing, vibrating, purring, whirring, thrumming the droning of a plane overhead

2. monotonous, boring, tedious, drawling, soporific the minister's relentlessly droning voice