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.

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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

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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

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Etymology

Origin of queue

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

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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

Those who’d like to see Vision and Ultron’s story from the very beginning should add “Avengers: Age of Ultron” to their queue.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 14, 2026

People queue at metal detectors and gaze up at the departures board.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 4, 2026

Thousands of people joined the online queue at 09:00 BST in the hope of securing tickets to the festival at Worthy Farm in Somerset, which returns from 23 to 27 June after a fallow year.

From BBC ● Oct. 4, 2026

The law prohibits using software to get around ticket limits, queue and presale restrictions.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 28, 2026

At the prefecture, a queue for gasoline coupons snakes out the door and around the block.

From "All the Light We Cannot See" by Anthony Doerr

"People are spending more and the week of Halloween is our busiest every year, we get queues outside the front door."

From BBC ● Oct. 12, 2026

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

"Fuel is unavailable, there are huge queues everywhere," he told AFP from his motionless Toyota sedan after a one-and-a-half hour drive from the capital Ulaanbaatar.

From Barron's ● Sep. 8, 2026

Still, sailors said that having no Wi-Fi made communicating with family and friends challenging, since there are often queues for the shared computers.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 5, 2026

People began to form up in queues to say good-bye.

From "Rebecca" by Daphne du Maurier

Travellers heading into Tibet often queued there from the previous day.

From BBC ● Sep. 1, 2026

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

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 21, 2026

Which makes the moment when we still have to ask ourselves what sounds good feel increasingly precious: a little unoptimized space before something has been recommended, queued or dropped into a cart for us.

From Salon ● Aug. 20, 2026

Dozens queued on a pontoon at Fourka waiting to flee as smoke blotted out the sky over the resorts, according to images broadcast by ERT.

From Barron's ● Aug. 13, 2026

Laughing, Dimple queued up “Dil Na Diya” from the movie Krrish on YouTube.

From "When Dimple Met Rishi" by Sandhya Menon

"This new virtual queuing approach has been designed in response to that feedback."

From BBC ● Sep. 17, 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

He said there were between 100 and 150 people queuing to get to the top.

From BBC ● Aug. 28, 2026

Munday said he believed queuing was "Snowdon specific" due to how popular it is.

From BBC ● Aug. 28, 2026

Kat explained that we were queuing for five tickets.

From "The London Eye Mystery" by Siobhan Dowd

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