CUE • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Cue

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noun

Cue n.

The tail; the end of a thing; especially, a tail-like twist of hair worn at the back of the head; a queue.

The last words of a play actor's speech, serving as an intimation for the next succeeding player to speak; any word or words which serve to remind a player to speak or to do something; a catchword. "When my cue comes, call me, and I will answer."

A hint or intimation. "Give them (the servants) their cue to attend in two lines as he leaves the house."

The part one has to perform in, or as in, a play. "Were it my cueto fight, I should have known it Without a prompter."

Humor; temper of mind. (Colloq.)

A straight tapering rod used to impel the balls in playing billiards.

Cue n. A small portion of bread or beer; the quantity bought with a farthing or half farthing. (Obs.) Note: The term was formerly current in the English universities, the letter q being the mark in the buttery books to denote such a portion. "Hast thou worn Gowns in the university, tossed logic, Sucked philosophy, eat cues?"

verb

Cue v. t. (past & past part. cued; pres. part. cueing) To form into a cue; to braid; to twist.

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Etymology of 'Cue'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Cue" Quotes from Famous Books

... place dropped his hand to the butt of his gun. But he did not draw. Some deep, wise instinct warned him to go slow. He knew the others would take their cue from him. If he threw down the gage of battle the room would instantly become a shambles. How many of them would again pass alive through the door nobody knew. He was a man who had fought often, but he could not quite bring himself to such a decision while those chilled-steel ...

— Oh, You Tex! • William Macleod Raine

... Ford took his cue promptly. "We can go out the other way," he said; and the secretary pro tempore had no ...

— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde

... almost a delicate sensual pleasure. It was all very good, very innocent and safe, and out of it something good must come. Augustine, indeed, who had an unbounded faith in her mistress's wisdom and far-sightedness, was a great deal perplexed and depressed. She was always ready to take her cue when she understood it; but she liked to understand it, and on this occasion comprehension failed. What, indeed, was the Baroness doing dans cette galere? what fish did she expect to land out of these very stagnant ...

— The Europeans • Henry James

... you must choose with the greatest care your time to come in. "Present not your selfe on the stage especially at a new play until the quaking Prologue hath, by rubbing, got [colour] into his cheekes and is ready to give the trumpets their cue that hees upon point to enter; for then it is time, as though you were one of the properties, or that you dropt out of ye hangings, to creepe from behind the arras, with your tripos or three-footed stoole in one hand ...

— The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare • J. J. Jusserand

... bled. Oh yes! believe me, you must draw your pen Not once nor twice but o'er and o'er again Through what you've written, if you would entice The man that reads you once to read you twice, Not making popular applause your cue, But looking to fit audience, although few. Say, would you rather have the things you scrawl Doled out by pedants for their boys to drawl? Not I: like hissed Arbuscula, I slight Your hooting mobs, if I can ...

— The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry • Horace

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