German

Noun

Queue m, n ‎(genitive Queues, plural Queues)
Queue f ‎(genitive Queue, plural Queues)

1. (billiards, snooker, pool, masculine in Germany, neuter in Austria) cue
2. (computing, feminine) queue, waiting list of e.g. tasks to be done
3. (military, feminine) the end of a column of troops

Usage notes

• Queue is one of a small number of German nouns which can or historically could have all three genders; see the appendix.

English

Noun

queue ‎(plural queues)

1. (heraldry) An animal's tail. [from 16th c.]
   • 1863, Charles Boutell, A Manual of Heraldry, p. 369:

     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.

2. (now historical) A men's hairstyle whose primary attribute is a braid or ponytail at the back of the head, such as that worn by men in Imperial China. [from 18th c.]
   • 1889, Arthur Conan Doyle, Micah Clarke, Chapter XIX:

     […] , 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.

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

     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, […]

   • 1967, William Styron, The Confessions of Nat Turner, Vintage 2004, p. 176:

     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 [...].

3. A line of people, vehicles or other objects, in which 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). [from 19th c.]
   • 1916, John Buchan, Greenmantle, Chapter 5,

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

4. A waiting list or other means of organizing people or objects into a first-come-first-served order.
5. (computing) A data structure in which objects are added to one end, called the tail, and removed from the other, called the head (- a FIFO queue). The term can also refer to a LIFO queue or stack where these ends coincide. [from 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).

Synonyms

• (line of people, vehicles, etc): line (North America)

Hyponyms

Derived terms

• cue
• queue-jump

Related terms

• jump the queue
• queueing theory

Related terms

• (heraldry): quevée

Translations

Verb

queue ‎(third-person singular simple present queues, present participle queueing or queuing, simple past and past participle queued)

1. To put oneself or itself at the end of a waiting line.
2. To arrange themselves into a physical waiting queue.
3. (computing) To add to a queue data structure.
4. To fasten the hair into a queue.
   • 1968, Francis Russell, The American Heritage History of the Making of the Nation

     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.

   • 1820, Washington Irving, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow

     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.

Synonyms

• (place itself at the end of a queue): join a queue, join the queue, line up

Derived terms

• dequeue
• enqueue
• queue up

Translations

See also

• FIFO
• LIFO
• cue

French

Etymology

From Middle French queu, cueue, from Old French cue, coe, from Vulgar Latin cōda, variant of Latin cauda. Doublet of coda.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /kø/
• Homophones: qu'eux, queux, queues
• Rhymes: -ø

Noun

queue f ‎(plural queues)

1. tail
2. queue, line
3. (snooker) cue
4. (vulgar, slang) cock, dick (****)

Synonyms

• (queue, line): file d'attente

Derived terms

• à la queue leu leu

Old French

Noun

queue f ‎(oblique plural queues, nominative singular queue, nominative plural queues)

1. Alternative form of cue