queue

plural queues

1. CommonwealthIrelandUKuncommonA 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).First known use 19th c.

   I was absent-minded at the moment and was last in the queue.

   1916, John Buchan, “Chapter 5”, in Greenmantle

   2 more examples

   In a report published on October 31, Transport Focus said that a number of train companies were unable to convince it about their ability to sell a full range of tickets, handle cash payments, and avoid excessive queues at ticket machines.

   2023 November 15, 'Industry Insider', “Outbreak of common sense”, in RAIL, number 996, page 68

   George Osborne said: “In terms of getting an international trade deal with the United States, we would have to get to the back of the queue.” And Obama said: “Would it be helpful if I said that?”[…]. So he used the words in the press conference, and people said: “Well, that sounds like somebody’s told you to say that because you used the word ‘queue’ instead of ‘line’.”

   2026 June 23, “‘Geldof started flicking Vs at Farage’: the story of the Brexit campaign, told by those with a front-row seat”, in The Guardian, →ISSN

   Synonyms: line, lineup

2. A waiting list or other means of organizing people or objects into a first-come-first-served order.
3. computingA 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.First known use 20th c.

   2005, David Flanagan, Java in a Nutshell, p. 234, Queue implementations are commonly based on insertion order as in first-in, first-out (FIFO) queues or last-in, first-out queues (LIFO queues are also known as stacks).

4. governmentAn animal's tail.First known use 16th c.

   HESSE: Az., a lion, queue fourchée, rampt., barry of ten, arg. and gu., crowned, or, and holding in his dexter paw a sword, ppr., hilt and pommel, gold.

   1863, Charles Boutell, A Manual of Heraldry, page 369

5. historicalA men's hairstyle with a braid or ponytail at the back of the head, such as that worn by men in Imperial China.First known use 18th c.

   A large number of loyal officials, rather than shave the front part of the head and wear the Manchu queue, voluntarily shaved the whole head, […]

   1912, Herbert Allen Giles, China and the Manchus, Chapter III — Shun Chih

   3 more examples

   In the morning and evening, spruce Chinamen stroll about or chat at each other's doors, in blue trousers, white jacket, and a queue into which red silk is plaited till it reaches almost to their heels.

   1869, Alfred Russel Wallace, The Malay Archipelago, volume II, London: Macmillan and Co., page 213

   […], there were seated astraddle the whole hundred of the baronet's musqueteers, each engaged in plaiting into a queue the hair of the man who sat in front of him.

   1889, A[rthur] Conan Doyle, chapter XIX, in Micah Clarke: […], London: Longmans, Green, and Co […], →OCLC

   Caparisoned for a week in purple velvet knee-length pantaloons, a red silk jacket with buckles of shiny brass, and a white goat's-hair wig which culminated behind in a saucy queue, I must have presented an exotic sight […]

   1967, William Styron, The Confessions of Nat Turner, Vintage, published 2004, page 176

present singular third person queues · participle present queueing · participle present queuing · participle past queued · past queued

1. intransitiveTo put oneself or itself at the end of a waiting line.

   Although there is a spacious circulating area beyond the platforms at Clacton, there is severe overcrowding on peak Saturdays; at times of pressure passengers have to queue out into the street [...]

   1959 April, B. Perren, “The Essex Coast Branches of the Great Eastern Line”, in Trains Illustrated, page 189

   Synonyms: join a queue, join the queue, line up

2. intransitiveTo arrange themselves into a physical waiting queue.
3. transitivecomputingTo add to a queue data structure.
4. To fasten the hair into a queue.

   Though Monroe the man has become a vague anachronistic figure in knee breeches and with queued, powdered hair, his name is perpetuated in the Monroe Doctrine, evoked by him as a temporary response to an immediate crisis.

   1968, Francis Russell, The American Heritage History of the Making of the Nation

   1 more example

   The sons, in short square skirted coats with rows of stupendous brass buttons, and their hair generally queued in the fashion of the times, especially if they could procure an eel skin for the purpose, it being esteemed throughout the country as potent nourisher and strengthener of the hair.

   1820, Washington Irving, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow

5. video gamesTo matchmake.

   I'm queueing into a game.