(UK,Ireland,Commonwealth, less common in North America) Aline of people, vehicles or other objects, usually one to bedealt with insequence (i.e., the one at the front end is dealt with first, the one behind is dealt with next, and so on), and which newcomersjoin at the oppositeend (theback).[from 19th c.]
I was absent-minded at the moment and was last in thequeue.
2023 November 15, 'Industry Insider', “Outbreak of common sense”, inRAIL, number996, page68:
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 excessivequeues at ticket machines.
Awaiting list or other means oforganizing people or objects into a first-come-first-served order.
(computing) Adata structure in which objects are added to one end, called thetail, and removed from the other, called thehead (in the case of aFIFO queue). The term can also refer to aLIFOqueue orstack 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).
1863, Charles Boutell,A Manual of Heraldry, page369:
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.
[…], there were seated astraddle the whole hundred of the baronet's musqueteers, each engaged in plaiting into aqueue the hair of the man who sat in front of him.
A large number of loyal officials, rather than shave the front part of the head and wear the Manchuqueue, voluntarily shaved the whole head,[…]
1967, William Styron,The Confessions of Nat Turner, Vintage, published2004, page176:
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 saucyqueue, I must have presented an exotic sight[…]
queue (third-person singular simple presentqueues,present participlequeueingorqueuing,simple past and past participlequeued)
(intransitive) To put oneself or itself at the end of a waiting line.
1959 April, B. Perren, “The Essex Coast Branches of the Great Eastern Line”, inTrains Illustrated, page189:
Although there is a spacious circulating area beyond the platforms atClacton, there is severe overcrowding on peak Saturdays; at times of pressure passengers have toqueue out into the street [...]
(intransitive) To arrange themselves into a physical waiting 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 withqueued, 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 generallyqueued 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.
Queue on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
Queue in theEncyclopædia Britannica (11th edition, 1911)