jump the queue
Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.
Meaning · English
To take someone's place ahead of them in a line or sequence
Literally: jump the line
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
Jonadab had made it clear that he had done his son - in - law a favour in allowing him to jump the queue and buy four of his grey shirehorses and now Stephen had to screw up his courage and confess that one was dead.
Maybe this will help me jump the queue in Purgatory.
British National Corpus sentence via the MAGPIE corpus (CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-30)
Sources & notes
Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-31; pending editor spot-check.
Common questions
What does “jump the queue” mean?
To take someone's place ahead of them in a line or sequence Literally: jump the line
Is “jump the queue” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.