Other forms: cues
A cue is a signal that it is your turn to act or speak. Miss your cue, on cue, take your cue from him.
It comes from the theatre, where the cue is the last words before your line. Right on cue means exactly at the moment expected, usually said of something that could not have been timed. A billiard cue is a different word entirely.
1nouncueA signal that it is your turn to act or speak.
“When the music stopped, that was the actor's cue to walk on stage.”
cue is a signal.
Probably from the letter q written in actors' scripts, said to abbreviate a Latin word for when.
Latin
quadrāns — quarter of an as
Middle English
cu
English, today
cue
From Middle English cu (used for half a farthing, from q as an abbreviation for Latin quadrāns (“quarter of an as”)), from Latin cū, kū. Compare French ku.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA