drone

i. & t. [Sw. dröna = to bellow, to drone; Dan. drone to rumble.] [DRONE, 8.] I. Intransitive : 1. To make a droning, monotonous, humming noise: as a bagpipe. 2. To live in idlene on the industry of others. "Why was I not the twentieth by descent From a long restive race of droning kings?" Dryden. Spanish Friar, ii. 2. 3. To read or speak in a droning, monotonous manner; to prose. "Turn out their droning Senate." Otway: Venice Preserved , ii. 3. II. Trans.: To read or repeat in a droning, monotonous tone. "And the reader droned from the pulpit, Like the murmur of many bees, The legend of good Saint Guthlac And Saint Basil's homilies." Long fellow: King Witlaf's Drinking Horn. IMG:content-0560.png:[blocks in formation]