queue

Etymology

It is borrowed from Anglo-Norman keu, queue, and Middle French queue (“tail”),^[2][3][4] from Old French cue, coe, recorded from about 1100 for an animal's tail,^[2][3][5] which continues Latin cauda (“tail”),^[2][6][7] in the form cōda, a dialectal variant.^[3][5][8] The origin of the Latin word is unknown.^[7][5] The same French word gave cue in the senses "tail" and "billiard cue",^[8][9] and the Latin one gave caudal and, through Italian, coda.^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

In double queue, a band of parchment attached to a letter, with seals hanging from its free ends: c. 1475, in Gregory's Chronicle.^[2][3] An English use for a cask of wine may be older (1416), but it is uncertain whether that example is English or Anglo-Norman.^[2]

Semantic evolution

In the 16th century the word was mainly a term of heraldry, for the tail of a beast in a coat of arms (1592).^[2][7][10] A single obscure use for a line of dancers is found before 1500.^[2][5] In the 18th century queue meant a pigtail, a long plait of hair hanging from the head or wig (1724), a use not found in French until 1762.^[2][11][9] The sense of a line of people waiting their turn was used in French from 1794, during the shortages of the Revolution,^[2][12] and it came into English through Carlyle's French Revolution (1837), which described the Paris bakers' shops with their "Queues, or Tails".^[3][2] Etymonline thinks this sense may come from the earlier one of a line of dancers, or directly from French.^[3] It became chiefly British: American English usually says line.^[13][2] The verb meant to tie the hair in a queue from 1754;^[2][11] the sense "to stand in a queue" is recorded from 1920,^[2] or 1924 according to Etymonline,^[3] and Weekley noted it as a verb of 1918.^[12] Computing adopted the noun in 1963 for a list of data items retrieved in a fixed order.^[2][13] Churchill is said to have coined Queuetopia in 1950 for Britain under a Labour government.^[3]

Timeline

• c. 1475 – double queue, a parchment band with seals (obsolete).^[2]
• ?a1500 – perhaps a line of dancers (obsolete).^[2]
• 1592 – (heraldry) the tail of a beast.^[2][5]
• 1724 – a pigtail.^[2][11]
• 1739 – a cask for wine.^[2]
• 1754 – verb, to tie the hair in a queue.^[2][11]
• 1837 – a line of people waiting, in Carlyle.^[2][3][5]
• 1920 – verb, to stand or wait in a queue.^[2]
• 1928 – verb, to arrange in a queue.^[2][3]
• 1963 – (computing) an ordered list of data or tasks.^[2]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. (chiefly British) A line of people or vehicles waiting their turn: We stood in the queue for the museum for an hour.
2. (computing) A list of data items, jobs or commands stored so that they are dealt with in a fixed order, usually the order in which they arrived.
3. (historical) A pigtail worn hanging down at the back of the head.
4. (heraldry) The tail of a beast.

Verb

1. (chiefly British) To wait in or form a queue, often queue up.
2. (computing) To place data or tasks in a queue.

Word family

• queuer

Related words

• caudal
• cue
• coda
• coward

Usage notes

The present participle is spelt both queuing and queueing.^[13][14]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
5. ^ a b c d e f Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
6. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b c d Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
8. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
9. ^ a b Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
11. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
12. ^ a b Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
13. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
14. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press