Noun: queue
| Singular | queue |
| Plural | queues |
Sample Sentences
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I was absent-minded at the moment and was last in the queue. [1916, John Buchan, “Chapter 5”, in Greenmantle:]
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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:]
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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:]
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2005, David Flanagan, Java in a Nutshell, p. 234,
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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).
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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:]
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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:]
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[…], 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:]
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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]
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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:]
Nouns inflected like queue
soldier's woundwort,
Nicosian,
whopper,
greypate,
tactile sign language,
chronotrope,
Rosie Lee,
dissentient,
photoinactivator,
sulphonediimine,
coastal waterfall,
residuary devise,
bituminization,
nitrosonaphthol,
smṛiti,
geosphere,
backscreen,
mensuralist,
flocculate,
flocculant, etc. (List truncated at 20 nouns)
Etymology
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. See: Middle English Nouns '
queue', Latin Nouns '
cauda'.
Verbs referencing "queue"
Irish Nouns
ciú.