noun
- a slender, stringlike piece or filament of relatively rigid or flexible metal, usually circular in section, manufactured in a great variety of diameters and metals depending on its application.
- such pieces as a material.
- a length of such material, consisting either of a single filament or of several filaments woven or twisted together and usually insulated with a dielectric material, used as a conductor of electricity.
- a cross wire or a cross hair.
- a barbed-wire fence.
- a long wire or cable used in cable, telegraph, or telephone systems.
- Nautical. a wire rope.
- Informal.
- a telegram.
- the telegraphic system: to send a message by wire.
- wires, a system of wires by which puppets are moved.
- a metallic string of a musical instrument.
- Underworld Slang. the member of a pickpocket team who picks the victim’s pocket.Compare stall2(def 5).
- Horse Racing. a wire stretched across and above the track at the finish line, under which the horses pass.
- Ornithology. one of the extremely long, slender, wirelike filaments or shafts of the plumage of various birds.
- a metal device for snaring rabbits and other small game.
- Papermaking. the woven wire mesh over which the wet pulp is spread in a papermaking machine.
- the wire, the telephone: There’s someone on the wire for you.