drone

   A drone is the male of the honey-bee, famous for doing no work. ‘Drone’ has therefore been applied to an idle person since the early sixteenth century, occasionally as a vocative. Thus Dromio of Syracuse, in The Comedy of Errors (2:ii), is berated by Luciana, who mistakes him for his twinbrother: ‘Dromio, thou drone, thou ‘tail, thou slug, thou sot!’ This is Shakespeare’s only vocative use of ‘drone’. It occurs again in Deborah, by Marian Castle, used by one girl to another. The speaker has to get up to go to work, and says to her friend: ‘You lucky parasite, to be able to sleep all day if you want to - ’ She adds: ‘Look, drone, I’ve got a job to hold! When my alarm goes off at seven, you’re to get me up if you have to throw cold water on me!’