The Etymology of Drone
Drone began its life as the male honeybee, a creature that does no work and produces a steady hum.βββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββ Old English 'drΔn' descends from Proto-Germanic '*dranon-,' likely imitative of buzzing. Each subsequent meaning extends a feature of the original: the bee's idleness produced the figurative 'drone' for a loafer in the 16th century; the bee's hum produced the bagpipe 'drone,' the 'droning' speaker, and the continuous low note in music. The unmanned-aircraft sense is the most recent. In 1935 the U.S. Navy adopted the radio-controlled De Havilland Queen Bee target plane and named its smaller derivatives 'drones,' after the queen's attendant males. The military meaning has now nearly eclipsed the others in everyday English, though the bee, the hum, and the loafer all survive.