drogue

/dɹəʊɡ/

drogue noun: a floating object attached to the end of a harpoon line to slow a whale down and prevent it from diving.

Noun

drogue (plural drogues)

(whaling) A floating object attached to the end of a harpoon line to slow a whale down and prevent it from diving.
- through the sash window I could see the black truck pulling up the drive towards the main road, the silver caravan coming behind like a drogue that was preventing the gypsies from submerging, escaping into the very centre of the earth.1993, Will Self, My Idea of Fun
A type of bag pulled behind a boat to stop it from broaching to.
A conical parachute used as a brake for some kinds of aircraft, or as a means of extracting and deploying a larger parachute, or to slow a rapidly-moving vehicle to a speed where it can safely deploy a larger parachute.
- At 11,000 feet, three pilot chutes deploy as the drogue chutes are cut away by pyrotechnics.2020, John Rocco, How We Got to the Moon, page 118
Synonyms:

drag parachute, drag chute, drogue chute, drogue parachute
A conical basket or device used variously as a target for gunnery practice, and as a docking point for aerial refuelling.
A wind cone.

Verb

drogue (third-person singular simple present drogues, present participle droguing, simple past and past participle drogued)

(transitive) To harpoon or spear (a whale) with a weapon that has a drogue attached.
- The old whalesman was not long aboard before getting confirmed in his conjecture that the ship was the same whose boats had harpooned and “drogued” the cachalot', the carcass of which had been encountered by the Catamaran.1865, Mayne Reid, The Ocean Waifs: A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea, page 363
- Although the Inuit were quick to adapt to the use of the whaleboat and new whaling methods, they retained certain elements of their aboriginal technology, and on May 1st all hands aboard the Cemma" spent the day 'making drogues (niutang) for the natives' boats to drogue fish with' ( Ross 1985b...1997, Marc Stevenson, Inuit, Whalers, and Cultural Persistence, page 80
(transitive) To use a drogue with.
- Here this type was drogued at 30 m by a^([sic]) 11.85 m parachute while the other types were not drogued.1977, A.D. Kirwan, Jr.; G. McNally; M.S. Chang; R. Molinari, “The Effect of Wind and Surface Currents on Drifters”, in Journal of Physical Oceanography, volume 5, page 353
- Moreover, droguing the drifter to some depth will not necessarily help.1994, Anand Gnanadesikan, Dynamics of Langmuir Circulation in Oceanic Surface Layers, page 306
(intransitive) To act as a drogue, slowing down and stabilizing a drifting object.
- Four drifters were deployed that drogued at 100 m by a 9.2-m personnel parachute off the island of Kyushu.1982, A.D. Kirwan, “Tracking the Kuroshio”, in Nimbus 6 Random Access Measurement System Applications Experiments, page 21
- If a dinghy were to fall from its container, out of sequence, it is still problematic whether the result would be to foul the flap and set up an unstable condition, or whether the result would drogue back and upwards sufficiently to foul the elevator horn balance.2013, Phil Tomaselli, Air Force Lives: A Guide for Family Historians, page 148
(transitive) To transport small loads along the coastline to larger ports, where they can be added to the cargo of larger ships that make longer journeys.
- In the East India Free Trade, the same custom is creeping in, many mercantile houses keeping small brigs constantly in the country droguing, that is, collecting freights for their large ships, which themselves only go to the head ports.1829, The Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal, page 247
- The merchants in Auckland send schooners and small brigs to 'drogue' for wheat along the coast; and thus the harvest finds its way to market.1857 September 5, Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature, Science and Arts, number 192, page 174

drogue meaning in Tamil and Indonesian

drogue in Tamil

மிதவைக் கட்டை

drogue in Indonesian

aeronautics: conical parachute: abaran
aeronautics: conical device pulled by aircraft: abaran

Synonyms of drogue

Forms of drogue

Noun
plural	drogues
Verb
third-person singular present	drogues
present participle	droguing
past participle	drogued
past	drogued

Origin of drogue

Uncertain; probably related to drag in some way.

Words formed from drogue

Phrases with drogue

Words that rhyme with drogue

Questions about drogue

What does drogue mean?: Drogue means a floating object attached to the end of a harpoon line to slow a whale down and prevent it from diving.
What is drogue in Tamil?: Drogue in Tamil is மிதவைக் கட்டை. See Drogue meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is drogue?: Drogue can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce drogue?: Drogue is pronounced /dɹəʊɡ/ (UK).
What is the plural of drogue?: The plural of drogue is drogues.

Words near drogue in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: drogue (page history and authors); drogue (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-drogue.wav, LL-Q1860 (eng)-Wodencafe-drogue.wav.

Cite this entry: “drogue.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/drogue. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.