queue

noun \ ˈkyü \

Definition of queue

1 :a braid of hair usually worn hanging at the back of the head

2 :a waiting line especially of persons or vehicles

3 a :a sequence of messages or jobs held in temporary storage awaiting transmission or processing

b :a data structure that consists of a list of records such that records are added at one end and removed from the other

See queue defined for English-language learners

See queue defined for kids

Examples of queue in a Sentence

The Tiong Bahru hawker center in Singapore might well be my favorite place in the world to start the day. I remember vividly my first visit: I arrived jetlagged and hungry at seven in the morning to find vendors stir-frying greens in gigantic woks, sending up whooshes of smoke fragrant with garlic. Long queues of businessmen and construction workers and families who likely lived in the nearby housing projects snaked from the cash register of each stall. —James Oseland, Saveur, October 2008
Around the time the Soviet Union ceased to exist, I was waiting in the entry queue at Fiumicino Airport in Rome when I noticed a party of several dozen young Russian girls being fast-tracked past a freshly opened control window. —Peter Robb, New York Times Book Review, 25 May 2008
But many more people deserve the Nobel than get it. Krauss should've gotten it years ago. Though by now so many other discoveries have been made that he's farther down in an ever increasing queue. —Carl Djerassi, Cantor's Dilemma, 1989
We were forced to stand in a queue.
Three jobs remain in the printer queue.

Recent Examples of queue from the Web

But don't worry if Stranger Things isn't at the top of your Netflix queue.

— andrea park, CNT, "Stranger Things-Themed Pop-Up Bar Opens in Chicago," 21 Aug. 2017
Start adding these movies to your queue and continue procrastinating on your summer reading assignment. 1.

— stacey grant, Seventeen, "12 Best Comedy Movies to Binge-Watch on Netflix RN," 18 Aug. 2017
Fantasia' (1940) The trippy animated film, choreographed to the tune of classical music, should be added to your queue immediately.

— carly mallenbaum, Cincinnati.com, "Stream these 10 Disney movies on Netflix while you can," 9 Aug. 2017
A queue of supplicants was positioned strategically outside his office door, and ran down the hall.

— omar waraich, The Atlantic, "The Corruption Conundrum in Pakistan's Democracy," 28 July 2017
And definitely don’t waste more explaining to guests the concept of adding tracks to the queue rather than abruptly changing the song (resulting in vibe suicide).

— AL.com, "How to plan a perfect tiki-themed party," 18 July 2017
One of those lines ran around the north side of the building and connected with another queue that was strung out past the Texas A&M law school and the Fort Worth Convention Center garage.

— max b. baker, star-telegram, "Thousands line up in Fort Worth for a shot at a job with Lockheed," 18 July 2017
Some 51 enterprises have gotten the green light to grow pot, and 815 applicants are in the queue.

— jen skerritt, courant.com, "Canada Prepares For Pot As Some Wonder About Demand," 17 July 2017
ON A sweltering morning, a motley crowd queues at the BAART Beverly clinic near downtown Los Angeles to receive methadone treatment for their heroin and prescription-opioid addictions.

— The Economist, "What would Hippocrates do?Most people addicted to opioids receive no treatment," 13 July 2017

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'queue.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Is it que, queue, or q?

One of our persistent—and more puzzling—lookups is for the word que, which is entered in our dictionary (capitalized) as an abbreviation for Quebec. Qué is also a Spanish word that means “what.” That is not, however, the word that many people are looking for when they look up que in our dictionary. Que is homophonous with a number of other words, most of which have wildly different spellings and meanings. One of the words that people are looking for when they look up que is queue, a word that means “line” (as in, “We waited in the ticket queue.”) Sometimes people are looking for the homonym cue, or “a signal to start or do something” (“The lights just went out—that’s my cue to start the movie.”). Very occasionally, people look up que for coup, a word that refers to a violent and sudden overthrow or takeover of a government (“reports on the latest coup attempt”). And if you’re looking for the phonetic spelling of the letter q, try again: that’s cue.

Origin and Etymology of queue

French, literally, tail, from Old French cue, coe, from Latin cauda, coda

NEW! Time Traveler

First Known Use: 1748

See Words from the same year

queue Synonyms

Synonyms

column, cue, file, line, range, string, train

Related Words

echelon, rank, row, tier; chain, progression, sequence, succession; array

Other Computer-Related Terms

adware, flash, kludge, phishing, recursive, router

queue

verb \ ˈkyü \

Definition of queue

queued; queuing or queueing

transitive verb

:to arrange or form in a queue (see ¹queue)

intransitive verb

:to line up or wait in a queue —often used with up

—

queuer

noun

See queue defined for English-language learners

Examples of queue in a Sentence

The World's Food Fair, Boston. October 1896. Admission: 25 cents. Huge crowds throng the Mechanics Hall convention center. Women queue up for free samples from 200 different vendors: cereals, gelatins, extracts, candy, and custards. —Christopher Kimball, Cook's Illustrated, January & February 2008
Nothing hacks off a national lawmaker more than a person who will not wait in line, unless that line is in front of an elevator at the U.S. Capitol, where Senators and Representatives use private elevators, lest they have to queue with their constituents. —Steve Rushin, Time, 10 Sept. 2007
The crowd was queuing at the snack bar.