wire
Pluralwires
Pluralwires
- 1A metal conductor that carries an electric current.
Each wire in the bundle carries current to a different part of the machine.
Electricians color-code the wires so they can tell them apart.
Similarcable, lead, conductor, cord
Note
Electric railways give this sense its own plural. The overhead lines that feed the trains are simply "the wires," and a train runs under them. Paul Bigland, writing in Rail in 2020, marvels at how the trains "shift under the wires." In a house the word is singular and specific: that wire powers the lamp.
- 2A single piece of metal drawn into a thread or slender rod, or a cable.
The sculptor twisted a length of wire into the shape of a bird.
Thin wires held the broken branch in place.
Similarcable
- 3Metal in the form of a thin strand of uniform thickness, today generally made by pulling it through a hole in a steel die.
The factory draws steel into wire of many different thicknesses.
Fine gold wire is soft enough to shape by hand.
Note
The oldest idea in the word is twisting. Old English wīr goes back to an Indo-European root meaning "to turn, twist, weave, plait," and the ancestral noun meant a twist, thread or cord. As a mass noun it is measured, not counted: you buy a coil, a roll or a length of wire, while a single strand is the countable use.
- 4To fit with wires so that electricity can be supplied and used.
The contractor needs to wire the entire building before the walls go up.
Volunteers wired the stage for lights and sound.
Note
Electricians wire a plug, a house or a stage, and rail planners use the verb on whole routes. A 2020 report in Rail mentions plans "to wire to Leicester," meaning to extend electrification as far as that city. With a route as its goal, the verb drops its object and takes to plus a place, because the line itself is understood.
- 5To send a message or money to another person through a telecommunications system, originally by telegraph.
The office will wire your payment as soon as the invoice clears.
He wired a short message ahead to warn them of his arrival.
Similarsend, transfer, remit, cable, telegraph
Note
Born with the telegraph, the verb now covers money as well as messages. You wire someone funds, or you wire ahead to a station. In Somerset Maugham's Of Human Bondage (1915), Philip wires "a succinct affirmative." The passive once meant being summoned by telegram: Sherlock Holmes has "been wired for" from the West of England. The message itself is a wire, the telegram.
- 6A hidden listening device worn by an undercover agent to secretly record incriminating conversations.
The detective fitted the witness with a wire before the sting operation.
Suspects often pat down strangers, fearing a wire.
Similarbug, mic, microphone
Note
The slang of undercover work, and almost always worn. An informant wears a wire, and a wary suspect pats strangers down looking for one, because the device travels on a body. When the microphones are hidden in a room or a car instead, English switches to the verb of bugging a place: agents wire the house.
- 7A cable or line used to carry telephone or telegraph communications.
The story came in over the wire late last night.
Crews repaired the downed wires after the ice storm.
Note
Telephone talk borrowed the cable for the call itself. A voice is "at the far end of the wire," as Arthur Conan Doyle writes in the mid-1920s, and over the wire means by line rather than in person. The usage is informal; in technical writing, line or cable is the safer word.
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- 9To shape a person's character or behavior, or an organization's culture, in a set and lasting way.
Evolution may wire humans to fear sudden movements.
The founder's caution wired the whole company to avoid risk.
Similarprogram, predispose, condition
Note
Usually passive and usually personal: that's just the way she's wired. In William Gibson's Neuromancer (1984), a character says, "I guess it's just the way I'm wired." The phrase presents a temperament as fixed rather than chosen. Andrew Radford speaks of grammar wired into the language faculty. Do not confuse it with the "keyed-up" sense: one describes temperament, the other a mood.
- 10A deadline, or the critical final moment by which something must be finished.
Negotiations went down to the wire before a deal was struck.
She submitted her application at the wire, minutes before the cutoff.
Similardeadline
Note
The idiom lives inside one fixed phrase: something goes right to the wire, or down to the wire, when it stays undecided until the last moment. The Traveling Wilburys use the down to the wire form in "Tweeter and the Monkey Man" (1988). Used on its own, the noun sounds looser, so the full phrase is the safe form.
- 11The finish line of a racetrack, marking where a race is won.
The favorite pulled ahead just before the wire.
Photographers capture each horse as it hits the wire.
Similarfinish
Note
A racing word with a literal past. The finish was historically marked by a wire stretched across the course above the line, and the first nose to reach it wins. Racegoers still say a horse hits the wire. The close finishes it decided gave the language the "deadline" meaning, as in going down to the wire.
- 12An electric telegraph, or a message sent over one; a telegram.
A wire arrived at dawn with orders to advance.
He dictated a brief wire to the operator at the station.
Note
The telegram as an everyday object: you send someone a wire, or you had a wire yesterday. In Karel Čapek's R.U.R., translated by Paul Selver, a character on the telephone says "send them a wire." In William Faulkner's Sartoris (1929), a character puzzles over a mixed-up one. The noun pairs naturally with the verb of sending.
- 13Any of the wires used to work the puppets in a show; by extension, the hidden influences that control a person or organization.
A skilled hand on the wire can bring a wooden figure to life.
Investors suspected someone was pulling the wires behind the sudden merger.
Similarstring
Note
The puppet theater lent politics its image of hidden control. The sense is usually plural and lives in the phrase pull the wires: to pull the wires for office is to work behind the scenes for a post. Strings is its exact equivalent, as in pull strings, and the two can be swapped freely.
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- 15To install hidden microphones or recording equipment in a place in order to secretly monitor conversations.
Investigators wanted to wire the warehouse before the next shipment arrived.
Agents had already wired the car by the time he returned.
Note
The bugging verb takes a place as its object: agents wire a house, a car or a warehouse. A wired house can also be one fitted for electricity, as with the electrician's verb, so the context has to signal which wiring is meant. A mention of a suspect or an investigation does that. The device on an informant's body is the noun, a wire.
- 16Clipping of wire service or newswire.
Reporters across the country picked the bulletin up off the wire within minutes.
Much of the paper's foreign coverage now comes straight from the wire.
Note
Newsrooms shortened wire service or newswire to this word, and it usually takes the definite article. Stories come in over the wire, and reporters pick them up off the wire. The image comes from the telegraph cable that once carried agency dispatches, but the clipping now names the feed itself. It is informal shop talk; wire service is the fuller form.
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- 18To make a person tense, agitated, or highly keyed up, often with nervous, restless energy.
Energy drinks tend to wire him until well past midnight.
The pre-game adrenaline had wired the entire team.
Similarstimulate, excite, agitate, energize
Note
Slang describes the jolt of a stimulant or of nerves this way: late coffee "wires me good and proper." The state it leaves behind is the adjective wired. Keep it to casual speech. Unlike the way someone is wired, it describes a passing condition, not a settled character.
- 19To add something into a system, especially an electrical one, by connecting it with wiring.
The contractor will wire the solar panels into the building's grid next week.
Technicians wired the backup generator into the hospital's emergency circuits.
Similarconnect, link, integrate, hook
Oppositedisconnect
Note
The literal member of a small family of senses is built on wire … to or into. You wire a camera to a screen, or a conference room into the LAN. The preposition matters: to joins two devices, while into makes something part of a larger system. The same into carries over to nerve cells and, further out, to people wired into a political scene.
- 20To embed someone or something so deeply into an organization or scene that they stay plugged in to its current information and remain fully involved.
Decades of favors let him wire himself into the state's political machine.
She had wired her startup into the region's tech community by attending every event.
Note
Figurative wiring applied to people and institutions usually appears as wired into. A fixer is wired into a legislature's intrigues, and a teleworker is wired into the job around the clock. H. L. Richardson's Split Ticket (1996) even nicknames such an insider "the Electrician." The phrase can praise good connections or hint at insinuation, so the context has to say which.
- 21To connect or add something into a system as if by wires, for instance the way nerves are linked within the body.
As the embryo develops, growing nerve fibers wire each new muscle into the spinal cord.
The transplanted neurons survived in the rats but were never properly wired into the surrounding circuits.
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- 23The slender, stiff shaft forming part of the plumage of certain birds.
The bird-of-paradise sweeps its slender wire through the air during courtship.
Each ornamental wire emerges from the base of the tail feathers.
- 24A horizontal line of beads strung above or beside a billiards table, used by players to keep score.
After each frame, she pushed a marker along the wire to track the score.
The old hall still had its scoring wire stretched above the table.
Note
A piece of billiard-hall furniture rather than a figure of speech. Beads slide along a wire strung above or beside the table, and players push them across, abacus-fashion, to record the running score of a frame or game. The fuller name, scoring wire, helps when the context is not obviously a game.
- 25A covert signal passed between people who are cheating together in a card game.
A subtle wire across the table told his partner to raise the bet.
Casino security caught the pair trading a wire during the poker hand.
Note
Cardsharps have their own word for the covert signal partners pass when cheating. It can carry the strength of a concealed hand or an instruction on how to bet. It counts like any signal: you send, pass or trade a wire across the table. It is the slang of crooked play, not a word for an innocent gesture.
- 26A slender metal rod used in knitting, equivalent to a knitting needle.
The pattern called for a finer wire than she usually owned.
He sharpened the broken tip of his favorite wire.
Similarneedle
Note
Where most English speakers say knitting needle, Scots can say wire. Outside Scotland, the word would be read as a length of metal wire, so a pattern written for a general readership should keep needle. In Scottish speech and writing, wire is a natural name for the knitter's tool.
- 27In croquet, to position a ball so that a wicket's wire blocks an opponent's clear shot at it.
A skilled player can wire two balls at once with a single stroke.
By careful placement she wired his ball against the upright.
Note
A croquet player's tactic. The ball is left where a wicket's wire stands between it and the opponent, denying a clear roquet or continuation shot. The blocked ball is said to be wired. The term belongs to the croquet lawn; elsewhere, the same verb would be read as fastening or electrical work.
- 28A pickpocket, particularly one who preys on women in crowds.
A practiced wire drifted through the fairground, easing watches from coat pockets.
Police warned that a notorious wire was working the railway platforms.
Note
Thieves' cant from an older underworld named a pickpocket a wire, especially one who robbed women. The word is archaic and belongs to period reading, not modern speech. A present-day listener who hears that someone is "a wire" will think of the hidden microphone instead. Use it only where a historical setting makes the meaning plain.
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Origin
From Middle English wir, from Old English wīr ("wire, metal thread, wire-ornament"), from Proto-Germanic *wīraz. This traces back to a Proto-Indo-European root *weh₁y- meaning "to turn, twist, weave, or plait."