Queue

[kyoo] /kyu/

noun
1.
a braid of hair worn hanging down behind.
2.
a file or line, especially of people waiting their turn.
3.
Computers. a FIFO-organized sequence of items, as data, messages, jobs, or the like, waiting for action.
verb (used with or without object), queued, queuing.
4.
to form in a line while waiting (often followed by up).
5.
Computers. to arrange (data, jobs, messages, etc.) into a queue.
/kjuː/
noun
1.
a line of people, vehicles, etc, waiting for something: a queue at the theatre
2.
(computing) a list in which entries are deleted from one end and inserted at the other
3.
a pigtail
4.
jump the queue, See queue-jump
verb queues, queuing, queueing, queued
5.
(intransitive) often foll by up. to form or remain in a line while waiting
6.
(computing) to arrange (a number of programs) in a predetermined order for accessing by a computer
n.

late 15c., “band attached to a letter with seals dangling on the free end,” from French queue “a tail,” from Old French cue, coe “tail” (12c., also “penis”), from Latin coda (dialectal variant or alternative form of cauda) “tail,” of unknown origin. Also in literal use in 16c. English, “tail of a beast,” especially in heraldry. The Middle English metaphoric extension to “line of dancers” (c.1500) led to extended sense of “line of people, etc.” (1837). Also used 18c. in sense of “braid of hair hanging down behind” (first attested 1748).
v.

“to stand in a line,” 1893, from queue (n.). Earlier “put hair up in a braid” (1777). Related: Queued; queueing. Churchill is said to have coined Queuetopia (1950), to describe Britain under Labour or Socialist rule.

programming
A first-in first-out data structure used to sequence objects. Objects are added to the tail of the queue (“enqueued”) and taken off the head (“dequeued”).
For example, an operating system might use a queue to serialise concurrent demands for a resource such as a printer, processor or communications channel. Users might place files on a print queue and a background process or “demon” would take them off and print them. Another common use is to pass data between an interrupt handler and a user process.
(2007-05-18)