Cue or queue?
cue is a noun meaning “An action or event that is a signal for somebody to do something”; queue is a noun meaning “A line of people, vehicles or other objects, usually one to be dealt with in…”. They sound the same (/kjuː/). In written English (wordfreq, 2021 data) queue is about as common as cue.
What is the difference between cue and queue?
| cue | queue | |
|---|---|---|
| Part of speech | noun, verb | noun, verb |
| Meaning | An action or event that is a signal for somebody to do something The last words of a play actor's speech, serving as an intimation for the next actor to speak; any word or words which serve to remind an actor to speak or to… To give someone a cue signal | CommonwealthIrelandUKA line of people, vehicles or other objects, usually one to be dealt with in sequence (i.e., the one at the front end is dealt with first, the one behind is… A waiting list or other means of organizing people or objects into a first-come-first-served order To put oneself or itself at the end of a waiting line |
| Example | Cue the cameraman, and action! | A large number of loyal officials, rather than shave the front part of the head and wear the Manchu queue, voluntarily shaved the whole… |
| Forms | cues 'cues | queues |
| Pronunciation | /kjuː/ /kjʉw/ /kju/ | /kjuː/ /kjʉw/ /kju/ |
| In writing | 5.6 times per million words | 6.0 times per million words |
Sources: cue and queue in the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Every current meaning of cue and queue
cue
- 1
The name of the Latin script letter Q/q
- 2
An action or event that is a signal for somebody to do something
- 3
To give someone a cue signal
Cue the cameraman, and action!
- 4
A straight tapering stick used to hit the balls in various games
- 5
To take aim on the cue ball with the cue and hit it
- 6
Acronym of clear and unmistakable error, a legal standard for appeal of a decision by a Board of Veterans Appeals in the United States
- 7
USinformalClipping of barbecue
- 8
The last words of a play actor's speech, serving as an intimation for the next actor to speak; any word or words which serve to remind an actor to speak or to do something; a catchword
queue
- 1
CommonwealthIrelandUKA line of people, vehicles or other objects, usually one to be dealt with in sequence (i.e., the one at the front end is dealt with first, the one behind is dealt with next, and so on), and which…
- 2
To put oneself or itself at the end of a waiting line
- 3
A waiting list or other means of organizing people or objects into a first-come-first-served order
- 4
To arrange themselves into a physical waiting queue
- 5
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…
- 6
To add to a queue data structure
- 7
An animal's tail
- 8
To fasten the hair into a queue
Source: the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); obsolete, archaic, dialect and rare senses left out.
Which is more common, cue or queue?
cue appears 5.6 times per million words; queue 6.0 times per million words.
cue 5.6 times per million wordsqueue 6.0 times per million words
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How many people search cue vs queue?
“cue vs queue” is searched about 9,900 times a month on Google and 440 on Bing in the United States. Google counts close variants of a query together (“queue vs cue”, “cue or queue”).
Sources: Google Ads keyword data through DataForSEO and Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, the average month from September 2025 to August 2026.