quevsqueueWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: que is a conjunction, queue is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“que” is a conjunction and “queue” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#13
“que” frequency rank
#2,954
“queue” frequency rank
2967
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature que queue
Definition Complémenteur pour introduire une proposition subordonnée complétive. Appendice postérieur, plus ou moins développé, qui termine la colonne vertébrale d’un très grand nombre de vertébrés.

Where the eye mixes que and queue

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

3 ch
que
5 ch
queue

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: que is \kə\ while queue is \kø\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “que” sits inside “queue”, and the parts of speech differ too (conjunction vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 2967, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

que is recorded at frequency rank #13, classified as aconj, pronounced \kə\. queue is at rank #2,954, tagged as anoun, pronounced \kø\.

Glosses for this pair are partially populated in our dataset, but the full side-by-side definitions above should still guide you to the right choice.

With a confusion score of 2967, this pair ranks #435,090 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of que vs queue

Shared letters: equ. Private to "que": -. Private to "queue": -.

"que" · 3 letters · shape CVV  ·  "queue" · 5 letters · shape CVVVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • queueqeuue · qqueue · queeu · quuee · uqeue

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "que" and "queue" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "que" is a conjunction and "queue" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "que" or "queue"?
"que" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #13 in our French list, against #2,954 for "queue". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list