drone

\dʁon\

/\dʁon\/ noun

By · According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA) ·

The verdict

“drone” has 7 generated spelling variants in the French index at frequency #9,472. The variants make it a useful spelling check.

#9,472
frequency rank, French
5,307
“D” headwords
7
tracked misspellings
20
confusable pairs

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Engin mobile terrestre, aérien, naval ou spatial, sans équipage embarqué, programmé ou télécommandé, et qui peut être réutilisé.

Corpus desk

Index FR-drone · drone · French

drone · rank #9,472 · 7 variants · 20 confusables

  • FREQ-COMMON #9,472
  • LEN-MID 5 letters
  • VOW-2 2 vowels
  • CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
  • VAR-MID 7 variants
  • BOOK-DENSE 5,307
  • PHOTO-FINISH divisée

Nearest frequency peer: divisée (-1 rank slots)

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.

Pairs de rang près de l'aimant d'erreurs « drone »

Même bande de rareté: utile si une faute tombe sur un lemme voisin

corpus weight

What this shows « drone » siège parmi ces pairs FrequencyWords; la profondeur des fautes est suivie à part dans le graphique d'édition.

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026

Visual similarity to commonly confused words

How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).

drone vs drop
60% similar
drone vs drunk
60% similar
drone vs drones
83% similar

Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).

Key facts for drone
PropertyValue
Headworddrone
LanguageFrench
Part of speechNoun
IPA\dʁon\
Letters5
Frequency rank#9,472
Misspellings tracked7
Confusable pairs20
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Fréquence de l'aimant d'erreurs « drone »

De gauche à droite: le peu qui porte la parole quotidienne, puis la longue queue quasi invisible.dronese place ici:

#1#100#1K#10K#100K
← used constantlyrarely used →

L'échelle est logarithmique (chaque tic ≈ 10× plus rare). Dans la même bande de rareté figurent « divisée » (#9,471), « déclarant » (#9,473), « disposant » (#9,469). Parmi 5,307 lemmes en « D », « drone » est au #9,472. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

A misspelling magnet

The generator records 7 spelling variants around drone (IPA \dʁon\), anoun. Corpus frequency is #9,472 among 5,307 “D” headwords. Wiktionary lists 2 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", "drunk", "drones", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.

This entry carries no recorded etymology, leaving phoneme-to-grapheme mapping as the best guide to its spelling rather than a borrowing history. The correct French form is drone, spelled D-R-O-N-E.

Definition

  1. 1
    Engin mobile terrestre, aérien, naval ou spatial, sans équipage embarqué, programmé ou télécommandé, et qui peut être réutilisé.
  2. 2
    Engin mobile terrestre, aérien, naval ou spatial, sans équipage embarqué, programmé ou télécommandé, et qui peut être réutilisé.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

These source excerpts show how drone appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. On reste en stationnaire et on envoie un drone et un éclaireur patrouiller le secteur.
  2. L’utilisation d’un plus grand nombre de drones pour la surveillance signifie que moins de garde-côtes européens et de navires de Frontex seront nécessaires en mer. Avec moins de navires européens, il y a plus de chances que des pays tiers interviennent sur les bateaux de migrants, supprimant ainsi l’obligation pour les agents de l’UE de les ramener sur le…

Synonyms

aéronef non habitéASP

This word in other languages

drone(English)dron(Español)Drohne(Deutsch)

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.

ddrone1dorne2drnoe2droen2dronne1drrone1rdone2
Edit distance from "drone"

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 French corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "drone"?
"drone" is spelled D-R-O-N-E. The IPA pronunciation is \dʁon\.
What does "drone" mean?
As a noun, "drone" means: Engin mobile terrestre, aérien, naval ou spatial, sans équipage embarqué, programmé ou télécommandé, et qui peut être réutilisé.
What words are commonly confused with "drone"?
"drone" is commonly confused with "drop", "drunk", "drones". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
How do you pronounce "drone"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "drone" is \dʁon\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "drone" come from?
"drone" is a French word. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for this and other words across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German on PlainSpell.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Similar French words by spelling shape

Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "drone", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked French headwords with 5 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

delta#9,467dance#9,465couru#9,459gares#9,488

Similar misspelling depth

Headwords with a similar count of attested misspellings (7 here; floor ≥5).

hebdo7 variantscitée7 variantsmarron7 variantstuent7 variants

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list