Other forms: wires, wired, wiring
A wire is the thin metal line that carries electricity. Live wire, cut the wire, wire cutters.
Copper is the usual metal because it conducts well and bends without breaking. In British house wiring the colours are brown for live, blue for neutral and green and yellow for earth, changed from red, black and green in about 2004. Note live wire, meaning an energetic person; down to the wire, meaning right to the end; and wired, meaning agitated or connected.
1nounwireA thin metal line that carries electricity.
“The lamp stopped working because a wire had come loose inside the plug.”
2verbconnectTo connect with wires.
“The electrician wired the new lights in the kitchen in one afternoon.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
wire is a metal line.
Also accepted in games: cable
Old English wir goes back to a root meaning to twist or weave. Wreath and the Latin viriae, armlets, come from the same twisting.
Proto-Indo-European
*weh₁y-
Proto-Indo-European
*weh₁iros — a twist, thread, cord, wire
Proto-Germanic
*wīraz — wire
Old English
wīr — wire, metal thread, wire-ornament
Middle English
wir
English, today
wire
Built from
From Middle English wir, wyr, from Old English wīr (“wire, metal thread, wire-ornament”), from Proto-Germanic wīraz (“wire”), from Proto-Indo-European weh₁iros (“a twist, thread, cord, wire”), from weh₁y- (“to turn, twist, weave, plait”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA