For the more commonly-encountered meanings, try to remember to use cue when referring to hints, suggestions, and information, and to use queue when referring to things that organize into lines. She cued the band to begin, but they did not notice her.Įvery night we queue outside the theater, hoping to get tickets, but the band never notices us.Įach word has additional meanings: cue can also refer to a stick used to play pool or billiards, and queue can refer to a braid of hair that hangs down the back of the head.

Cue and Queue as verbsīoth cue and queue function as verbs, with meanings that relate to the ones they have as nouns: cue can mean “to give a prompt to,” and queue can mean “to arrange or form in a line (or a queue).” The printer is once again broken, and keeps switching up the items in the queue. It was cold and rainy, but the show was so popular that no one seemed upset to spend two hours in the queue outside the theater. The most common uses of queue as a noun are “a waiting line especially of persons or vehicles” and “a sequence of messages or jobs held in temporary storage awaiting transmission or processing.” The first of these is mainly used in British English, and the second one is mainly found in reference to computers. Many poker players focus on the subtle visual cues they get from their opponents before making bets. The famous actor was well-known for fumbling his lines, and often had to rely on cues to help him remember them. When yet another guest threw a glass of wine in my face I took this as a cue to depart. The most common meanings of cue, used as a noun, are “a signal to a performer to begin a specific speech or action”, “a feature indicating the nature of something perceived,” and “a hint.” Here are some examples: When your nonverbal signals match up with the words youre saying, they increase trust, clarity, and rapport. However, there are notable difference between these words, when each is used as a noun or as a verb. Your nonverbal communication cuesthe way you listen, look, move, and reacttell the person youre communicating with whether or not you care, if youre being truthful, and how well youre listening. It can be tricky to tell the difference between cue and queue, as they are pronounced in the exact same way (like the letter Q).

Visual cues definition