queue

noun \ ˈkyü \

|Updated on: 5 Jul 2018

Editor's Note: Is it que, queue, or q?

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 these four are the old standbys in my streaming queue.

— kelly lawler, USA TODAY, "These TV shows make doing summer chores just a little bit better," 29 June 2018
When someone tries to upload pornography to YouTube, an artificial intelligence agent sees a bare breast and shunts it into a separate queue.

— alex kingsbury, BostonGlobe.com, "How do you regulate a tech company?," 14 June 2018
Get ready to add Chloe Grace Moretz’s new Netflix movie to your queue on June 22.

— kara nesvig, Teen Vogue, "New Chloe Grace Moretz Film "Brain on Fire" Is Coming to Netflix," 14 June 2018
The Chinese were seen as strange, dressed in unfamiliar clothes, their hair woven into a single long braid, known as a queue.

— jeff gammage, Philly.com, "When past is present: New documentary explores harsh treatment of Chinese immigrants," 25 May 2018
Read on for the favorite travel movies of editors past and present—and get your Netflix queue ready.

— cnt editors, Condé Nast Traveler, "The 45 Best Travel Films of All Time," 11 May 2018
As guests delve deeper into the queue, the surrounding aesthetic begins to drive the attraction's original story.

— matt cabral, The Hollywood Reporter, "What It's Like Riding with the 'Fast & Furious' Crew at Universal Studios," 5 May 2018
Epic Community Manager Nick Chester clarified in a tweet that players will be able to opt into cross-platform matchmaking queues or stick with players on the same platform.

— kyle orland, Ars Technica, "Fortnite Battle Royale will have the “same gameplay” on mobile devices [Updated]," 9 Mar. 2018
Six-figure cars topping 500 horsepower rumbled into the queue.

— robert duffer, chicagotribune.com, "Best affordable sports car? 2017 Honda Civic Si," 7 Sep. 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

in the meaning defined at sense 1

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.

Recent Examples of queue from the Web

Pregnant women queued, too; one in 350 mothers were dying in childbirth, about the same as in Gabon today.

— The Economist, "Theresa May’s lacklustre plan for the NHS," 21 June 2018
In this future, hip urban millennials parents will use Beam not just for Netflixing and HBOing, but queuing up the soundtracks to their hip, urban lives and for controlling their hip, urban smart home.

— lauren goode, WIRED, "Sonos's New Soundbar Points to a Voice-Enabled Future," 6 June 2018
Some of the fans queued outside Nike's flagship store for several hours in the morning to get into the store.

— stephanie busari and chris giles, CNN, "Nigeria World Cup kit sells out in minutes as fakes flood Lagos markets," 1 June 2018
James queued up video of himself draining midrange jumpers the previous summer.

— lee jenkins, SI.com, "Back Where He Belongs: LeBron James Finds Sense of Normalcy in NBA Finals Trip," 30 May 2018
The mirror rooms, where visitors queue up and wait for instructions from gallery attendants before stepping inside for brief encounters with the infinite punctuate all of these more-or-less normal displays.

— steven litt, cleveland.com, "Kusama 'Infinity Mirrors' show in Toronto offers preview of what's coming to Cleveland (photos)," 6 May 2018
Hundreds of people had queued for hours and cheered as the monarch and Meghan arrived at the bridge to meet architects, planners and community members.

— katie nicholl, Vanities, "Meghan Markle Joins the Queen For Her First Royal Outing Without Harry," 14 June 2018
After checking in and signing a standard liability waiver, visitors are given a wristband and queued up to receive a backpack that stores a computer and a set of goggles, which together make the visual, interactive experience possible.

— perry fein, latimes.com, "The VOID puts virtual-reality experience into motion," 18 May 2018
Over 100,000 grieving fans queued to observe his coffin at a local Basketball arena, with another 15,000 waiting to safeguard his burial at the Medellin cemetery.

— SI.com, "World Cup Countdown: 6 Weeks to Go - The Own Goal That Killed Andres Escobar," 13 May 2018

Origin and Etymology of queue

see ¹queue

NEW! Time Traveler

First Known Use: 1777

in the meaning defined at transitive sense

See Words from the same year

QUEUE Defined for English Language Learners

queue

noun

Definition of queue for English Language Learners

: a line of people who are waiting for something
computers : a series of instructions that are stored in a computer so that they can be processed later