queueing

IPA/kjuː/
IPA/kjuː/

queueing — 名詞

1. A group of people standing one behind the other, or a line of cars, waiting for

1.名詞B1
釋義

隊伍；人龍

排隊等候的人或車輛

A group of people standing one behind the other, or a line of cars, waiting for their turn to do something such as buy a ticket, enter a building, or be served at a counter.

例句

A long queue of passengers had formed outside the train station ticket office by six o'clock in the morning.

早上六點，火車站售票處外面已經有一長排乘客在排隊等候。

collocation: a long queue of [people]

Tara joined the queue for the new art exhibition and waited nearly an hour before reaching the entrance.

Tara 加入美術館新展覽的排隊隊伍，等了將近一個小時才到達入口。

同義詞
  • line

    Standard American English equivalent for a queue of people or vehicles

  • waiting line

    Slightly more formal term for a queue, used in both British and American English

  • crocodile

    UK informal; a line of schoolchildren walking in pairs

文法句型

a queue of [people/vehicles]

queue for [something]

用法筆記

Queue is the standard word in British English; American English uses line for this sense. The verb sense (to queue) is also chiefly British.

常見錯誤

❌Stand in a queue line please.
✅Stand in a queue please.
💡queue already means a line, so adding line is redundant.
❌I waited in the queue for two hours.' (correct but too general)
✅I waited in the queue for two hours before reaching the counter.
💡a more specific context helps.

2. A list of tasks, messages, or requests that a computer system stores temporarily

2.名詞B2
釋義

待處理佇列

電腦系統中等待處理的任務序列

A list of tasks, messages, or requests that a computer system stores temporarily and processes one after another in the order they were received.

例句

The printer queue showed fifteen documents waiting to be printed, so Ryo cancelled the ones he no longer needed.

印表機佇列顯示有十五份文件在等待列印，Ryo 取消了那些他已經不需要的文件。

collocation: printer queue

When the mail server failed, messages piled up in the outgoing queue and were sent after the restart.

郵件伺服器故障時，信件堆積在外寄佇列中，系統重新啟動後寄出。

collocation: outgoing queue

同義詞
  • waiting list

    Used for tasks or jobs awaiting processing, especially in non-technical contexts

  • buffer

    A temporary storage area that holds data, but not necessarily in sequential order

文法句型

[print/message/job/task] queue

用法筆記

Unlike the line-of-people sense, this computing sense is universal across all varieties of English. Common collocations include print queue, message queue, job queue, and download queue.

常見錯誤

❌My documents are waiting in the line.' (using 'line' for a computing queue)
✅My documents are waiting in the queue.
💡in computing, queue is the standard term in all varieties of English.

3. A plaited length of hair worn hanging from the crown area down the spine, tradit

3.名詞C1
釋義

辮子

垂在腦後的辮子髮型

A plaited length of hair worn hanging from the crown area down the spine, traditionally worn by men in Qing-dynasty China and by certain 18th-century European soldiers.

例句

In many 19th-century portraits, Chinese officials are shown with a long queue of braided hair hanging down their backs.

在許多十九世紀的肖像畫中，清朝官員腦後都垂著一條長辮子。

The museum showed a photograph of men with shaved foreheads and a single plaited queue.

博物館展示了一張男子前額剃光、腦後垂著辮子的老照片。

historical context: Qing-era hairstyle

同義詞
  • pigtail

    A braid of hair, but usually one of a pair worn on the sides rather than at the back

  • braid

    A general term for any plaited length of hair

文法句型

wear a queue

a queue of hair

用法筆記

This sense is historical rather than modern. When used about Qing-dynasty China, the queue hairstyle had political significance — wearing it was a mark of submitting to Manchu rule. The word queue in this sense is also used for certain 18th-century European military wigs that featured a small braided tail.

4. A way of organizing data in a computer program where new items are added at the

4.名詞C1
釋義

資料佇列

先進先出的資料結構

A way of organizing data in a computer program where new items are added at the back and existing items are taken out from the front, following a first-in, first-out order.

例句

In computer science class, Maeve learned how to implement a queue data structure using an array and two pointers.

在電腦科學課上，Maeve 學會了如何使用陣列和兩個指標來實作佇列資料結構。

collocation: implement a queue data structure

Nadia implemented a queue in her online shop to process customer orders in the order they arrived.

Nadia 在她的網路商店中使用佇列，按照顧客下單的順序來處理訂單。

concrete usage: queue for order processing in an online shop

同義詞
  • FIFO queue

    Explicitly names the first-in, first-out property of the structure

  • circular buffer

    A related data structure where the storage wraps around, but not exactly the same

反義詞
  • stack

    A LIFO (last-in, first-out) data structure, opposite ordering principle

文法句型

implement a queue

queue data structure

用法筆記

This is a computer science term referring specifically to the abstract data type (ADT) with enqueue and dequeue operations. It differs from the general computing sense (sense 2) by focusing on the formal algorithmic structure rather than the practical collection of waiting tasks.

常見錯誤

❌A queue removes the item added most recently.
✅A queue removes the item added earliest.
💡a queue uses FIFO (first-in, first-out), not LIFO. A stack removes the most recent item.

queueing — 動詞