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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

queue.

A line of people, vehicles or other objects, usually one to be dealt with in sequence (i.e., the one at the front end is dealt with first, the one behind is dealt with next, and so on), and which newcomers join at the opposite end (the back).

5 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/kjuː/Received-Pronunciation/kjʉw/British, Southern, Standard/kju/General-American/kjʉw/Australia, New-Zealand
  1. A line of people, vehicles or other objects, usually one to be dealt with in sequence (i.e., the one at the front end is dealt with first, the one behind is dealt with next, and so on), and which newcomers join at the opposite end (the back).

    Commonwealth · Ireland · UK · uncommon
  2. A waiting list or other means of organizing people or objects into a first-come-first-served order.

  3. A data structure in which objects are added to one end, called the tail, and removed from the other, called the head (in the case of a FIFO queue). The term can also refer to a LIFO queue or stack where these ends coincide.

  4. An animal's tail.

  5. A men's hairstyle with a braid or ponytail at the back of the head, such as that worn by men in Imperial China.

    historical
Where this word comes from

From Middle English queue, quew, qwew, couwe, from Anglo-Norman queue, keu and Old French cöe, cue, coe (“tail”), from Vulgar Latin cōda, from Latin cauda. See also Middle French queu, cueue. Doublet of coda and cola.

verb/kjuː/Received-Pronunciation/kjʉw/British, Southern, Standard/kju/General-American/kjʉw/Australia, New-Zealand
  1. To put oneself or itself at the end of a waiting line.

    intransitive
  2. To arrange themselves into a physical waiting queue.

    intransitive
  3. To add to a queue data structure.

    transitive
  4. To fasten the hair into a queue.

  5. To matchmake.

    I'm queueing into a game.
Where this word comes from

From Middle English queue, quew, qwew, couwe, from Anglo-Norman queue, keu and Old French cöe, cue, coe (“tail”), from Vulgar Latin cōda, from Latin cauda. See also Middle French queu, cueue. Doublet of coda and cola.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.