the.com/cue
The invisible nudge that tells you when to speak, strike, or panic.
means A signal or prompt — an action, word, or object — that tells you the right moment to do something.
from Theatrical in its most traceable sense, cue emerges in the 1500s, likely from 'Q' as a scribal shorthand used in actors' scripts marking where a line began — possibly abbreviating Latin 'quando' ('when'). The billiards cue (the stick) is a totally separate word, from French 'queue,' meaning tail — which is also where the hair-braid and the waiting-line sense of 'queue' come from. English just happened to pile both onto the same sound.
- etymology
- from Q, shorthand for Latin quando, meaning when
- theater origin
- stage direction telling actors when to act
- billiards twist
- same word, different spelling, same idea of precise timing
- psychology term
- a trigger that prompts automatic behavior or memory