drone
/dɹəʊn/
"drone" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“drone” has 7 generated spelling variants in the English index at frequency #7,127. The variants make it a useful spelling check.
- #7,127
- frequency rank, English
- 3,470
- “D” headwords
- 7
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - A male ant, bee, or wasp, which does not work but can fertilize the queen.
Corpus desk
Index EN-drone · drone · English
drone · rank #7,127 · 7 variants · 20 confusables
- FREQ-COMMON #7,127
- LEN-MID 5 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
- VAR-MID 7 variants
- BOOK-MID 3,470
- PHOTO-FINISH dragged
Nearest frequency peer: dragged (-1 rank slots)
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
Rank peers near misspelling magnet “drone”
Same rarity band: useful when a typo lands on a peer headword
- distinctive
distinctive
92,878 corpus weight
- donation
donation
92,876 corpus weight
- dragged
dragged
92,875 corpus weight
- drone
drone
92,874 corpus weight
- ensuring
ensuring
92,871 corpus weight
- enterprises
enterprises
92,870 corpus weight
What this shows “drone” sits among these FrequencyWords peers; misspelling depth is tracked separately in the edit-distance chart.
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | drone |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /dɹəʊn/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #7,127 |
| Misspellings tracked | 7 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency seat of misspelling magnet “drone”
A misspelling magnet
The generator records 7 spelling variants around drone (IPA /dɹəʊn/), anoun. Corpus frequency is #7,127 among 3,470 “D” headwords. Wiktionary lists 8 senses, so context still picks the gloss.
Our generated misspelling index lists 7 likely wrong-spelling variants for drone, with forms such as "ddrone", "dorne", and "drnoe". Every one of these variants traces to a single-character edit -- an added or dropped letter, a swapped consonant, or a vowel swap -- the kind of slip a spell-checker is built to catch. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "drop", "dune", "drunk", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English drane, from Old English drān, from Proto-West Germanic *drānu, from Proto-Germanic *drēniz, *drēnuz, *drenô (“an insect, drone”), from Proto-Indo-European *dʰreh₁n- (“bee, drone, hornet”). Cognate with Danish drone (“drone”), Dutch dar (… The correct English form is drone, spelled D-R-O-N-E.
Definition
- 1A male ant, bee, or wasp, which does not work but can fertilize the queen.
- 2One who does not work; a lazy person, an idler.
- 3One who performs menial or tedious work.
- 4A remotely operated vehicle.
- 5A remotely operated vehicle.
- 6A Toyota HiAce or a similar van, especially one used by Ugandan state agents to kidnap opposition members.
- 7One who lacks the ability to think critically and independently, especially one who follows a group blindly; a non-player character.
- 8In dronification kink, one who is mindless and obedient to a dominant, characterized by a detached and robotic identity and an anonymous appearance, typically composed of a latex suit and gas mask.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how drone appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
All with united force combine to drive / The lazy drones from the laborious hive.
SHYLOCK: / The patch is kind enough, but a huge feeder, / Snail-slow in profit, and he sleeps by day / More than the wild-cat; drones hive not with me; / Therefore I part with him; and part with him / To one what I would have him help to waste / His borrowed purse. […]
Etymology
From Middle English drane, from Old English drān, from Proto-West Germanic *drānu, from Proto-Germanic *drēniz, *drēnuz, *drenô (“an insect, drone”), from Proto-Indo-European *dʰreh₁n- (“bee, drone, hornet”). Cognate with Danish drone (“drone”), Dutch dar (“male bee or wasp”), German Drohne, dialectal German Dräne, Trehne, Trene (“drone”), Low German drone (“drone”), Swedish drönje, drönare (“drone”). The etymology of the sense of "remote-controlled aircraft" is disputed; theories include early military UAVs dumbly flying on preset paths.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as:
- ddrone
- dorne
- drnoe
- droen
- dronne
- drrone
- rdone
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of drone - counted as single-character edits (an insertion, a deletion, or a substituted letter). The larger the bar, the easier the typo is to spot; one-edit slips are the ones that sneak past readers.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 English corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "drone", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 5 letters (nearest by frequency rank).
Similar misspelling depth
Headwords with a similar count of attested misspellings (7 here; floor ≥5).