Queue

Part of speech: noun, verb

Pronunciation: /kjuː/

Definitions

1. A line of people or things waiting in order to be served or processed
2. A sequence of individuals or items arranged in a line awaiting their turn for service or attention
3. An ordered line composed of entities awaiting processing or access in a particular sequence

Etymology: The most surprising fact is that a line of people waiting their turn descends from a word for an animal's tail. "Queue" came into Middle English from Anglo-Norman "queue" and Old French "cöe" or "cue", both meaning "tail", which in turn came from Vulgar Latin "cōda", a form of the Latin "cauda" with the same sense. The image is simple: a tail is the long, trailing end of something, and a queue of people is the same shape, stretched out behind the first person in line. The word's sense of an orderly line is a later development built on that physical picture. Early uses kept the literal meaning of an animal's tail or a long pigtail of hair, and the waiting-line sense grew out of the idea of a trailing string of people. The term also has relatives in English that show how far the Latin root travelled: "coda" in music, the closing section of a piece, and "cola", a related form, both come from the same stock.

Synonyms: line, sequence, row, column, chain

Antonyms: disorder, chaos