For people waiting their turn, queue is the word British English favours, while American English tends to say line, as in standing in line rather than joining the queue. Both words spread further than waiting rooms: queue is also the term for a computing structure that processes items in order, and line covers everything from a mark on a page to a telephone connection. Memory hook: the British queue up, the Americans line up.
The core difference
Queue is the chiefly British word for a line of people waiting their turn, while line is the broader, and American-preferred, word for the same row.
- queue — a line of people or vehicles waiting their turn, served in the order they arrived: There was a long queue outside the bakery before it even opened.
- line — a row or sequence of people, things, or words, one after another: We stood in line for nearly an hour.
How to tell them apart
Queue comes from Old French cöe or cue, meaning tail, and that image still fits: a queue is a line of people trailing off like a tail. Line has a much older and broader root, from Old English line, meaning rope, row, or series, itself from a Germanic word connected to flax and linen — the oldest sense was literally a cord or thread, from which both row and mark later developed.
The mix-up mainly shows up in writing meant for a mixed British and American audience, or in translated instructions, where telling someone to join the line versus join the queue can read as regionally odd depending on the reader. It is worth knowing that queue also has a specific computing sense, for a structure that processes items in the order they were added, and that line stretches even further, covering everything from a drawn mark to a telephone connection.
