to drone on
10
6.0
- phrasal verb
- /droʊn ɑn/
- Informal
:
hablar monótonamente
- And meanwhile, I'm back over at CNN, Wolf Blitzer still droning on from a teleprompter.
And meanwhile, I'm back over at CNN, Wolf Blitzer still droning on from a teleprompter.
- And meanwhile, I'm back over at CNN, Wolf Blitzer still droning on from a teleprompter.
- They may drone on and on and on about their vacation or their car or their job or their kids or whatever.
Examples
-
Every time he drone on about his favorite movie, his friends zone out and stop paying attention.
-
The Keeper droned on and on for what seemed to Lenora to be an eternity.
Fiction book (1995) -
We're still holding while the president drones on.
-
Listening to them drone on and on about their jobs and their stupid, stupid lives.
-
He'll still be droning on about that game when he gets home tonight.
-
For the past 15 minutes now, you've been droning on about names.
-
At the board, the math teacher droned on about Pythagoras and pi.
Fiction book (1995) -
The Emergency Broadcast System station droned on with the news of chaos, devastation, terror, and destruction throughout the world.
Fiction book (1998) -
Human beings were not meant to sit in little cubicles staring at computer screens all day, filling out useless forms, and listening to eight different bosses drone on about mission statements.
-
The lecture was so boring that I found myself tuning out as the professor droned on about the same topics again and again.
Synonyms
48
5.3
To talk or write for a long time without a clear point
38
5.0
To talk for a long time without stopping, often giving too many details
23
6.7
Talk again and again about the same thing and annoy people
15
6.2
Talk for a long time in an unclear way about small unimportant things
12
8.0
To talk a lot in a silly way that makes little sense
9
8.4
To talk on and on in a silly way about unimportant things
5
6.6
To talk for a long time about small boring things
2
7.7
To talk a lot in an annoying, noisy way
1
5.8
To make a long low steady sound
1
8.4
To talk without stopping in an annoying way
1
9.4
To talk for a long time about unimportant things
1
9.1
Talk for a long time in a way that annoys other people
1
8.7
To talk for a long time in a noisy, excited way about small things
Speak to someone for a very long time in a way that annoys them
To talk a lot in a silly, pointless way
Antonyms
How Monotonous
Surface Forms
Morphology
The sense 'to speak repeatedly in a dull, monotonous voice' is directly derivable from 'drone' (to speak in a continuous low monotone) plus the particle 'on' (indicating continuation or persistence). This verb + on composition is a regular, cross-linguistically common way to express continued action, so a B1 learner who knows the constituents will readily infer the meaning.
Etymology
Drone on comes from the steady, low sound of a drone, like a bee or a machine, that keeps buzzing on and on. So when someone talks in the same flat voice for a long time, we say they drone on, meaning 'to speak in a dull, repeating way'.