droning

1. 1
   noununcountable

   A dull, continuous humming sound.

   Like the unbroken hum of power lines on a still night.

   The droning of the air conditioner filled the empty office.

   Over the engine's droning, the pilot's voice was barely audible.

   Similarhum, humming, buzzing, whirring

   Note

   Steadiness is the point: a droning is a sound so even that the ear stops registering it. Lord Dunsany's The Gods of Pegāna (1905) builds a simile on exactly that, a man hearing "the droning of little insects" without being aware he has heard them. The noun usually takes the and an of-phrase naming the source. It can also be counted: the dronings of distant engines.

2. 2
   verb

   Present participle of drone.

   The engines were droning steadily as the plane crossed the ocean.

   She sat through the droning lecture without saying a word.

   Note

   One -ing form does three grammatical jobs. It is a progressive verb (the engines were droning), a gerund in noun position, and an adjective before a noun (a droning lecture). It can carry any verb sense of drone. With an object it is the colloquial military verb, so droning a target means striking it from an unmanned aircraft. The sound senses also produce the countable noun for a hum.

Showing meanings only. Show all 2