quadcopter

noun

quad·​cop·​ter ˈkwäd-ˌkäp-tər 

plural quadcopters

: a drone (see drone entry 1 sense 2) deriving lift from four separate rotors each oriented about a vertical axis : quadrotor

It's a quadcopter, meaning it's a miniature helicopter with four rotors; basically it looks like a giant four-leaf clover designed by Darth Vader.

—Lev Grossman

A remote control quadcopter-type model helicopter flew directly through the U.S. Coast Guard base at the Arcata-Eureka Airport in McKinleyville on Saturday afternoon …

—Eureka Times Standard (California)

Examples of quadcopter in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Estimated at fewer than 200,000 personnel, the Taliban’s military structure lacks a functional air force, relying instead on a handful of aging Soviet-era attack helicopters and transport aircraft abandoned during the US withdrawal as well as quadcopter drones. —Sophia Saifi, CNN Money, 27 Feb. 2026

Luke and Mike Bell, the father-and-son team from South Africa already famous for pushing electric quadcopters to velocities that seemed positively absurd, appear to be building for both. —New Atlas, 27 Feb. 2026

Missiles cost tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars, are limited in quantity and can be overkill for a quadcopter drone that costs less than a laptop. —Deni Ellis Béchard, Scientific American, 13 Feb. 2026

HavocAI’s autonomy stack works equally well on aerial (drones, quadcopters, missiles) and terrestrial (trucks, ATVs and rovers) autonomy assets, as evidenced by the demonstrations in Troia, Portugal (discussed above) and Geoje (discussed below). —Sabbir Rangwala, Forbes.com, 30 Jan. 2026

Word History

Etymology

quad entry 5 + -copter (in helicopter entry 1)

First Known Use

2004, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for quadcopter

• adopter
• copter
• helicopter