queue

1 of 2

noun

ˈkyü 

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

queue

2 of 2

verb

queued; queuing or queueing

transitive verb

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

intransitive verb

: to line up or wait in a queue

—often used with up

queuer noun

Did you know?

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.

Synonyms

Noun

• line
• column
• train
• row
• file
• string

Examples of queue in a Sentence

Noun

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.

Verb

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 on the Web

Noun

Long queues formed at gas stations across the city. —Barney Henderson, MSNBC Newsweek, 17 June 2025

While some requests can be handled in-house, for those that need to be pushed out to other city departments will go immediately with no hold times or queues like there were before, according to Benjamin. —R. Christian Smith, Chicago Tribune, 13 June 2025

Verb

People queued up outside the main SFJAZZ Center entrance to pick up their tickets (i.e. wristbands) at a box office area assembled specifically for the festival. —Jim Harrington, Mercury News, 16 June 2025

Riders will queue up in an expansive (and thankfully shady) warehouse structure that resembles garages seen in the films. —Tom Tapp, Deadline, 12 June 2025

Word History

Etymology

Noun and Verb

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

First Known Use

Noun

1724, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Verb

1754, in the meaning defined at transitive sense

Phrases Containing queue

• jump the queue
• queue-jumping

Rhymes for queue

• blew
• blue
• boo
• brew
• chew
• chou
• clue
• coo
• coup
• crew
• cue
• dew

Kids Definition

queue

1 of 2 noun

ˈkyü 

1

: a pigtail usually worn hanging at the back of the head

2

: a waiting line

a queue at a ticket window

3

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

queue

2 of 2 verb

queued; queuing or queueing

1

: to arrange or form in a queue

2

: to line up or wait in a queue

the crowd queued up for tickets

queuer noun

Etymology

Noun

from French queue, literally, "tail," from Latin coda, cauda "tail" — related to coda, coward, cue entry 3 see Word History at coward

Word Origin

The Latin word cauda or coda, meaning "tail," passed into French and in time ended up being spelled queue. English borrowed this word, giving it the meaning "a long braid of hair," one that hangs from a person's head like a tail. This sense is still in use, but we more commonly refer to such a braid as a pigtail today. In the 19th century, queue came to be used for something else that looked like a tail—a number of people waiting in line.