ca·ble / ˈkābəl/ • n. 1. a thick rope of wire or nonmetallic fiber, typically used for construction, mooring ships, and towing vehicles. ∎  the chain of a ship's anchor. ∎  Naut. a length of 200 yards (182.9 m) or (in the U.S.) 240 yards (219.4 m). ∎  (also cable molding) Archit. a molding resembling twisted rope.2. an insulated wire or wires having a protective casing and used for transmitting electricity or telecommunication signals. ∎  a cablegram. ∎ short for cable television.• v. [tr.] 1. contact or send a message to (someone) by cablegram. ∎  transmit (a message) by cablegram. ∎  [intr.] send a cablegram.2. (often be cabled) provide (an area or community) with power lines or with the equipment necessary for cable television.3. Archit. decorate (a structure) with rope-shaped moldings.ORIGIN: Middle English: from an Anglo-Norman French variant of Old French chable, from late Latin capulum ‘halter.’

cable A physical medium for carrying signals. Fiber optics requires specially prepared optical fibers to carry light signals. Electric cable is usually insulated copper wire encountered in various forms depending on the intended application; common forms include twisted pair (unshielded and shielded), coaxial cable, and ribbon cable.

An electric circuit must always contain an outward and a return path. For low-frequency and low-power signals the outward path can consist of a single conducting wire, with the return path carried by a common ground (earth) return, which can be shared by many different circuits. At higher frequencies and powers this system is no longer effective, and it is necessary to provide both an outward and a return conductor. At still higher frequencies, the two conductors need to be kept close to one another, as in twisted pair, so that the outward current in one conductor is balanced by the corresponding inward current in the other; this reduces the amount of energy lost by radiation. Screened cable is a multipath electric cable with a surrounding screen usually formed from an interwoven fine wire mesh, and used for example in shielded twisted pair; the screen provides some isolation from external sources of electrical interference. Multicore cable is a multipath cable frequently containing a mixture of screened and single conductors; sometimes one or more coaxial cables are included to provide paths for high-frequency or other special signals.

cable.
1. Rope-moulding carved to look like a rope, with twisted strands, found in Roman Antiquity (e.g. Corinthian Order of the thermae at Nîmes), but mostly associated with Romanesque architecture, especially around arches.

2. Cabled fluting, cabling, ribbed fluting, rudenture, or stopped flute, consisting of convex mouldings set in the flutes of Classical column- or pilaster-shafts, between the fillets but not projecting beyond their faces, and seldom carried up higher than a third of the height of the shaft. Cabling occurs occasionally on unfluted shafts, so the cables are in relief, as in Borromini's Church of Sant'Ivo della Sapienza, Rome (1643–60).

cable Wire for mechanical support, for conducting electricity or carrying signals. In civil and mechanical engineering, a cable is made of twisted strands of steel wire. They range in size from small bowden cables to massive supporting cables on the decks of suspension bridges. In electrical engineering, a cable is a conductor of electricity and consists of one or more insulated wires, which may be either single or multi-stranded. They range greatly in size, from cables used for domestic wiring to the large, armoured underwater cables. These are used for telephone, radio, television and data signals. In a coaxial cable, one conductor is cylindrical and surrounds the other. Optical fibres carry signals in the form of coded pulses of light.

cable XIII. — AN., ONF. *cable, var. of OF. chable (mod. câble — Pr.) — late L. cap(u)lum halter — Arab. habl, assoc. with L. capere seize, hold (cf. HEAVE); perh., however, immed. — Pr. cable, and in any case reinforced by (M)LG., (M)Du. kabel. Applied c. 1850 to a rope-like line used for submarine telegraphy;
hence cable vb. send a message by cable; cablegram message so sent. XIX.