A queue is a line of people or things waiting their turn. When you stand in the cafeteria line waiting for lunch, you're standing in a queue. When cars line up at a traffic light, they form a queue. The British use this word all the time: “Join the queue” means “Get in line.”

You might hear someone say they're queuing up for tickets to a concert, meaning they're getting in line and waiting.

In computer science, a queue works the same way: information waits its turn to be processed, first come, first served. Your printer handles documents in a queue. When you add songs to a playlist, you're adding them to a queue.

The trickiest thing about this word is spelling it: that unusual ueue ending trips up many people. Remember that after the Q and U, there are three more vowels in a row, all silent. It's pronounced exactly like the letter Q or the word “cue.”

As a verb, queue means to form a line or to wait in one: you can queue for lunch, or your files can queue to be printed.