queue

American  

[kyoo] / kju /

noun

• queues
  plural

1. 

   a braid of hair worn hanging down behind.

2. a file or line, especially of people waiting their turn.

3. Computers. a FIFO-organized sequence of items, as data, messages, jobs, or the like, waiting for action.

---

verb (used with or without object)

• queues,
  present (3rd person singular)
• queued,
  past participle,  past
• queuing
  present participle

1. to form in a line while waiting (often followed byup ).

2. Computers. to arrange (data, jobs, messages, etc.) into a queue.

queue British  

/ kjuː /

noun

1. a line of people, vehicles, etc, waiting for something

   a queue at the theatre

2. computing a list in which entries are deleted from one end and inserted at the other

3. a pigtail

4. See queue-jump

---

verb

1. to form or remain in a line while waiting

2. computing to arrange (a number of programs) in a predetermined order for accessing by a computer

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• queuer
  noun

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• queues
  plural

Participles

• queuing
  present
• queued
  past

Conjugated Forms

Present

• queue
  simple
• queues
  simple
• have queued
  perfect
• has queued
  perfect
• am queuing
  progressive
• are queuing
  progressive
• is queuing
  progressive
• have been queuing
  perfect progressive
• has been queuing
  perfect progressive

Past

• queued
  simple
• had queued
  perfect
• was queuing
  progressive
• were queuing
  progressive
• had been queuing
  perfect progressive

Future

• will queue
  simple
• will have queued
  perfect
• will be queuing
  progressive
• will have been queuing
  perfect progressive

Etymology

Origin of queue

First recorded in 1585–95; from Middle French, from Latin cauda, cōda “tail”

Explanation

A queue is a line of things, usually people. If you go to the store on a big sale day, there will probably be a long queue at the check-out. Queue comes from the Latin cauda, for "tail." Outside the United States it means a line of people or vehicles waiting their turn, so if your English friend talks about queuing up for the movies, that means getting in line for a ticket. We also use it in computing to mean an order of messages to be sent. In a big office, you send documents to the printer queue, and they're printed in the order they are sent.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

queue queues queued queuing

Once on the other side of the queue, people can buy up to six tickets per transaction after paying a deposit.

From BBC ● Sep. 30, 2026

He waited about two hours in the cashier's queue, with customers crowded inside but few staff working.

From Barron's ● Sep. 27, 2026

There’ll be, like, one or two people there, but our team is out there working with them, and they’re usually able to get in the queue and get back indoors.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 20, 2026

Among those hoping to secure some anniversary cards is 21-year-old Grace Orton, who said she was willing to queue up to get her hands on them.

From BBC ● Sep. 15, 2026

A pair of witches broke away from the queue for the lift and bustled off.

From "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" by J.K. Rowling

At night, queues snake around the block outside nightclubs where DJ’s spin thumping house music for big-spending revelers, their faces sculpted by surgery and tanned by the sun.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 23, 2026

Long online queues formed for the first tranche of tickets released on July 1, which were snapped up within hours.

From Barron's ● Sep. 10, 2026

Liam White said queues at the top of Yr Wyddfa had been an issue for years.

From BBC ● Aug. 28, 2026

Long queues formed outside fuel stations in the capital and other cities.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 26, 2026

Every time I turned my e-mail program on, I faced hundreds of messages from kids, students, former students, parents, and teachers stacked in vast queues; it took hours just to download the mail.

From "Geeks: How Two Lost Boys Rode the Internet Out of Idaho" by Jon Katz

Application fees will also rise 20-fold from Thursday and at one immigration office in central Tokyo visited by AFP this week hundreds of people queued, hoping to wrap up procedures before the price spike.

From Barron's ● Oct. 1, 2026

When it ended, dozens queued to meet and take photos with him.

From BBC ● Sep. 26, 2026

Scores of women queued at a school sheltering Nepal flood victims, jostling to receive personal-care supplies, as concerns over sanitation and menstrual hygiene mount days after the catastrophic disaster.

From Barron's ● Sep. 1, 2026

On Tuesday morning, dozens queued up, sometimes wrapping around the shop’s interior.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 21, 2026

And nearby in the jungle, in the eerie, storm-coming light* animals queued up in pairs: Girlboy.

From "The God of Small Things" by Arundhati Roy

"Now they have turned against us," he told the BBC at the Burundian embassy in Nairobi where many have been queuing this week for documents to allow them to travel back home.

From BBC ● Sep. 12, 2026

In recent years, the festival has also introduced an automatic queuing system on the day of sale, with fans needing to be online before the start of the sale with a valid registration number.

From BBC ● Sep. 8, 2026

That led to 20 percent fewer vessels and a 17 percent drop in tonnage, not to mention longer lines of ships queuing up.

From Barron's ● Sep. 3, 2026

A spokesman for the Eryri National Park Authority previously said there were "no plans to intervene in a dispute over hikers queuing at the top of Yr Wyddfa".

From BBC ● Aug. 28, 2026

Hermione was already queuing outside, carrying an armful of heavy books and looking put-upon.

From "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" by J.K. Rowling