cue

«cue» in Mova's school dictionary: A signal, word or action that tells someone it is time to… — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 1 sentence of Mova's corpora that use it.

part of speech

noun (a cue, cues); verb (cue, cues, cued, cueing/cuing)

meaning for a pupil

1) A signal, word or action that tells someone it is time to do something, especially an actor to speak or come on stage. tree →

2) A hint that helps you understand or remember something: «context cues», «picture cues». tree →

3) A long thin stick used to hit the ball in snooker, pool and billiards. tree →

4) (verb) To give someone a signal to start: «Cue the music!» tree →

5) (verb) To get a song or video ready at the right point to play. tree →

sense in the lessons

In school plays, actors wait for their cue. In reading lessons teachers talk about «picture cues» and «context cues» to work out a hard word. In everyday talk «on cue» means at exactly the right moment, and «take your cue from someone» means copy what they do. Phrases: «on cue», «right on cue», «miss your cue», «take a cue from», «cue the music», «pool cue».

examples

• When the bell rang, that was our cue to line up. tree →
• The actor missed his cue and came on late. tree →
• Right on cue, the rain started as we left. tree →
• Use the picture cues to guess the word. tree →
• He chalked the end of his cue before taking the shot. tree →
• Cue the music! tree →
• Take your cue from the teacher and stay calm in the fire drill. tree →
• She cued up her favourite song. tree →

note

Homophone: «queue» (a line of people) sounds exactly the same — «wait in the queue», but «wait for your cue». «Cue» is also the name of the letter Q sound. Past: «cued»; -ing: «cueing» or «cuing».

In the corpora

• Cue cards hold key words only, so you can look up often.

Trees and pragmatics

Every meaning and example of «cue» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.