Queue Long Kjuː I Waiting People Noun Polling

• there were long queues at polling stations.
• the bus queue
• the front/head/back/end of the queue
• i had to join a queue for the toilets.

queue

1. a line of people, cars, etc. waiting for something or to do something
• There were long queues at polling stations.
• the bus queue
• the front/head/back/end of the queue
• I had to join a queue for the toilets.
• Patients face lengthy queues for treatment.
• There was a queue of traffic waiting to turn right.
• There's a queue of people trying to get in.
• How long were you in the queue?
• Shoppers had to wait in long queues.
• I have to stand in a queue at immigration.
• I took my place in the queue.

Extra Examples

• Long queues are building up on the city's exit roads.
• More unemployed people are joining the dole queue each week.
• Please form an orderly queue.
• The queue stretched for more than a mile.
• The queue's not moving at all.
• a long queue of shoppers
• the country's soaring prices and growing food queues
• the queue for tickets
2. a list of items of data stored in a particular order
3. to go to the front of a line of people without waiting for your turn

Word Origin

• late 16th cent. (as a heraldic term denoting the tail of an animal): from French, based on Latin cauda ‘tail’. Compare with cue ‘long stick used for playing billiards, pool and snooker’. Sense (1) dates from the mid 19th cent.