queue

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.

noun

1. (Britain, less common in North America) 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).
   I was absent-minded at the moment and was last in the queue. 1916, John Buchan, “Chapter 5”, in Greenmantle
2. A waiting list or other means of organizing people or objects into a first-come-first-served order.
3. (computing) A 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.
   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. (heraldry) An animal's tail.
   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. (now historical) A men's hairstyle with a braid or ponytail at the back of the head, such as that worn by men in Imperial China.
   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
   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

verb

1. (intransitive) To 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
2. (intransitive) To arrange themselves into a physical waiting queue.
3. (computing, transitive) To 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
   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