[Variant of QUEUE, a. mod.F. queue, in OF. cue, coe, keue, = Pr. coa, coda, It. coda:—L. cauda tail.]
1. A long roll or plait of hair worn hanging down behind like a tail, from the head or from a wig; a pigtail. Also spelt QUEUE.
1731. Cibber, Epil., to G. Lillo’s Lond. Merchant. The Cit, the Wit, the Rake cocked up in Cue.
1772–84. Cook, Voy., IV. III. vi. (R.). Those cues or locks … look like a parcel of small strings hanging down from the crown of their heads.
1843. Lever, J. Hinton, xxxvi. (1878), 251. The scrupulous exactitude of his powdered cue.
2. The long straight tapering rod of wood tipped with leather, with which the balls are struck in billiards and similar games.
[According to Littré the queue was originally the small end of the tapering stick then called the billard.]
1749. in B. Martin, Dict.
1779. J. Dew, Billiards, in Hoyle’s Games Impr., 247. If the Leader follows his Ball with either Mace or Cue past the middle Hole, it is no Lead.
1844. Alb. Smith, Mr. Ledbury, xxxviii. (1886), 118. He knocked down a large cue that was lying against the billiard-table.
1856. Crawley, Billiards (1859), 7. The best cues are made plain, of well-seasoned ash.
3. The tail (of an animal). humorous use.
1867. Lowell, Biglow P., Ser. II. 80. Your [frog’s] cues are an anachronism.
4. ‘A support for a lance, a lance-rest’ (Imperial Dict.).
5. Comb. (from sense 2), as cue-ball, -tip; cue-butt (see quot.); cue-rack, a rack for holding billiard cues.
1873. Bennett & ‘Cavendish,’ Billiards, 26. Cue-tips are made of two pieces of leather cemented together. Ibid., 27. The cue-butt or quarter-butt is larger in diameter than the cue, about 5 feet long, and leathered at the bottom.
