Cuing or Cueing: Which Is Correct?

The standard spelling is cueing — and cuing is not quite a misspelling. This is one of the rare confusables where both forms have dictionary standing, but they do not have equal standing. Oxford Learner’s Dictionaries lists the verb forms as cue, cues, cued, cueing; Collins’s British entry gives the present participle as cueing. American dictionaries are more permissive: Collins’s American entry (Webster’s New World) gives “cuing or cueing,” and Merriam-Webster’s verb forms include cuing. So the safe, universal choice is cueing — correct everywhere — while cuing is an accepted American variant. This article explains why the two forms exist, which to use, and what the verb actually covers.

The verb and its full family

Oxford defines the verb cue as “to give somebody a signal so they know when to start doing something” — can you cue me when you want me to begin speaking? — with the forms cue / cues / cued / cueing. Collins’s British entry agrees: word forms “cues, cueing, cued,” glossing it as “to give a cue or cues to (an actor)” and “to signal (to something or somebody) at a specific moment in a musical or dramatic performance” (to cue in a flourish of trumpets). The noun it comes from is the theatre signal itself: Collins’s first sense is “something another performer says or does that is a signal for them to begin speaking, playing, or doing something.”

The verb has since spread well beyond the stage. Collins’s American entry adds the recording-studio sense — “to ready (a recording) to play back from a certain point,” often with up (cue up the next song) — and the general “to give information or a reminder to (someone)” (will you cue me on my lines?). Merriam-Webster’s examples show the same range in the wild: televisions “cued to videos,” and — in a newspaper article on digestion — bitterness “cueing saliva, stomach acid and digestive enzymes,” the verb stretched to the body’s own signalling. Wherever a signal prompts an action, cue — and therefore cueing — can go.

Why two spellings exist

The double form is a collision between a spelling rule and a readability instinct. The general rule for verbs ending in silent e is to drop the e before -ing: make → making, take → taking, cue → cuing. By that rule alone, cuing is the “regular” form — and that is exactly why American dictionaries accept it.

But English also has a counter-habit: verbs ending in -ue and -oe very often keep the e before -ing, to protect the word’s shape and pronunciation. Shoe → shoeing (not “shoing”), hoe → hoeing, toe → toeing, tiptoe → tiptoeing. Cueing follows that family: the kept e preserves the ue ending that readers recognize as the word cue, and it prevents any momentary misreading. British lexicography standardized on cueing; American lexicography, true to its Noah Webster inheritance of tolerating regularized forms, lists both.

The practical upshot is a clean hierarchy, not a coin toss:

• cueing — standard everywhere; the only form Oxford and Collins’s British entries give. Use it and no reader, editor, or spellchecker in any country will blink.
• cuing — an accepted American variant (Merriam-Webster, Webster’s New World). Not a misspelling in US English, but it will look like one to British readers and to American readers who only know cueing.

When one form is universal and the other is regional, the universal form wins. Keep the e.

Not to be confused with queueing

The nearest neighbour of this confusion is queue — the line of waiting people — whose -ing form is queueing (also seen as queuing). Collins even notes that in American English, cue is “a variant spelling of queue,” which means the two words’ orbits genuinely touch. Keep them apart by meaning: cueing is about signals (cueing the band, cueing a video), queueing is about lines (queueing for tickets). A DJ cues up a track; a crowd queues up at the door. The u after the q in queueing is the tell — cueing has no second u.

	cueing	cuing
Status	Standard in all varieties (Oxford, Collins British)	Accepted American variant (Merriam-Webster, Webster’s New World)
Formed from	cue /kjuː/ + -ing = /ˈkjuːɪŋ/
Why it looks right	Keeps the ue ending, like shoeing, hoeing	Follows the drop-the-silent-e rule, like making
Use it…	Everywhere — never wrong	Only in American writing, and only if your style guide allows
Example	cueing the actors	cuing the actors (US variant)

The word’s history, briefly

Cue the signal probably comes from the theatre’s paperwork. Merriam-Webster traces noun and verb to “probably from qu, abbreviation (used as a direction in actors’ copies of plays) of Latin quando, ‘when'” — the letter q scribbled in a script to mark an entrance. Collins’s American entry dates that to 1545–55: “spelled name of the letter q as an abbreviation (found in acting scripts) of L quandō, when.” Oxford is more cautious — “verb mid 16th cent.: of unknown origin” — but the q-for-quando story is the standard account. (The billiard-stick cue is a different word entirely, from French queue, “tail” — which is why it has nothing to do with this article’s spelling question, though Collins lists its American verb forms as “cued, cuing or cueing” too.)

Correct and incorrect, in sentences

• ✓ He read the scene, with Seaton cueing him. — Collins’s own example; the standard form.
• ✓ He read the scene, with Seaton cuing him. — acceptable in American writing (Webster’s New World lists cuing), but cueing is the safer choice.
• ✓ Can you cue me when you want me to begin speaking? — Oxford’s example; base form, no controversy.
• ✓ Cue up the next track while I introduce the guest. — the recording-studio phrasal use; -ing form: cueing up.
• ✗ The crowd was cueing for tickets. — wrong word: a crowd waiting in line is queueing (with the second u).
• ✓ The crowd was queueing for tickets. — lines, not signals.

Common mistakes

Assuming “cuing” is a typo. It isn’t — in American English. “Correcting” someone’s cuing to cueing in a US document is harmless (you’ve replaced a variant with the standard), but flagging it as an error in proofreading overstates the case. Know the variant exists.

Using “cuing” for a British or international audience. The reverse error. British dictionaries give only cueing; to a UK reader cuing reads as a dropped letter. International and British writing should always use cueing.

Mixing “cueing” and “queueing.” Signals versus lines. Cueing the band (prompting them to start); queueing for the bar (standing in line). The spellings differ by exactly one u — the one that queue carries from its French tail.

Over-regularizing: “cueing” → “cueeing.” Nobody does this deliberately, but the kept-e logic tempts some writers to double it. The e of cue is already there; -ing attaches directly: cueing, one e.

A compact memory rule: cueing keeps its e the way shoeing keeps its e — the word refuses to undress before the -ing. One spelling works everywhere; the shorter one only works in America.

FAQs

Which is correct: “cuing” or “cueing”?

Cueing is the standard form in every variety — it is the only present participle Oxford and Collins’s British entry list. Cuing is an accepted American variant recorded by Merriam-Webster and Webster’s New World. When in doubt, write cueing.

Is “cuing” a misspelling?

Not in American English, where two major dictionaries record it as a variant. Everywhere else it will be read as one. It follows the regular drop-the-silent-e rule (make → making), which is why it looks so plausible.

What does “cueing up a track” mean?

In recording and broadcasting, to ready a recording to play from a certain point — a DJ or producer gets the track set to start, often by adjusting the playhead. The phrasal verb cue up works the same way: cueing up the next song.

How is “cueing” pronounced?

/ˈkjuːɪŋ/ — KYOO-ing. Rhymes with queueing (/ˈkjuːɪŋ/ for the line-word too, another reason the two get tangled), but the spellings differ.

Takeaway

When the -ing form is at stake, cueing is the one spelling that works everywhere: standard in British and American English, the only form Oxford and Collins’s British entry list, and the safe choice for international writing. Cuing is not an error in American English — Merriam-Webster and Webster’s New World both record it — but it will read as one outside America. Keep the e, and the word keeps its identity: signals, not lines.