For what it's worth, the people actually using these, namely the US Air Force doesn't call them drones in any official capacity - but alternatively UAS, RPV, RPA and very rarely UAV. In fact when I was a briefer, just as they were becoming ubiquitous, there was quite a bit of debate about calling them RPAs vs UAVs, which was the most used term at the time.

The DoD nor USG has never officially associated "Drone" with any specific flying operations.