Word.ws English Dictionary

conga line

conga line noun: a line of people dancing the conga.

conga line: a line of people dancing the conga
Image: Neeta Lind, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

conga line (plural conga lines)

  1. A line of people dancing the conga.
  2. (figuratively) A succession of similar events, especially a quick, unstoppable, and/or comical succession.
    • The politician's vainglorious boasting was quickly followed by a conga line of embarrassing defeats.
  3. (Canada, Northern-US, figuratively) A moving formation of snowplows and/or similar equipment, arranged in a diagonal line across a multilane highway, airport runway, or other roadway, such that the snow from the first vehicle is passed to the second, and then from the second to third, and so on, thereby clearing much or all of the route's width in a single pass.
    • It was a pity, Mel Bakersfeld reflected, that runway snow teams were not on more public view. . . . Airport men called the group a Conga Line.1968, Arthur Hailey, Airport, Doubleday, page 56
    • Plows, snowblowers and dump trucks have formed their winter conga lines, and most Montreal Island cities say they'll have streets and sidewalks cleared of snow by Thursday.1999 January 5, Amanda Jelowicki, “Heavy going: Road crews will be out till Thursday to clean up first big snowfall”, in The Gazette, Montreal, Canada, page A3

Examples of conga line in a sentence

  • The trip took longer than usual–following the snow plow conga line, and dodging spinning Expeditions and Jimmys as they pirouetted off the road.1999 January 16, “Welcome to Spin City: Heavy Snow Highlights Drivers' Bad Judgement”, in Toronto Star, Canada, page W1:
  • On highways such as I190 and I290 a conga line lets plows make a clean sweep from curbline to curbline on one pass he said.2000 January 26, “Snow Cleanup Choreographed”, in Worcester Telegram Gazette:
  • The plows move in a "conga line," one tossing snow to the next.2001 February 22, Matthew L. Wald, “Getting Snow Off Runways”, in New York Times, retrieved 13 Aug 2011:

Forms of conga line

pluralconga lines

Questions about conga line

What does conga line mean?
Conga line means a line of people dancing the conga.
How do you use conga line in a sentence?
The trip took longer than usual–following the snow plow conga line, and dodging spinning Expeditions and Jimmys as they pirouetted off the road.
What part of speech is conga line?
Conga line is a noun.
What is the plural of conga line?
The plural of conga line is conga lines.

Words near conga line in the dictionary

  1. cong
  2. cong you bing
  3. cong.
  4. conga
  5. conga drum
  6. conga line
  7. conga lines
  8. congaed
  9. congaing
  10. Congaree
  11. congas

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: conga line (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-conga line.wav.

Cite this entry: “conga line.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/conga_line. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.