How to Use live wire in a Sentence

live wire

noun
  • She's a real live wire.
  • Cables knocked to the street from the crash were not live wires.
    Tom Hallman, oregonlive, 1 Sep. 2023
  • The officer arrived to find the pole on the ground with live wires on the street.
    cleveland, 13 Mar. 2020
  • Chick is the live wire: the needy and oblivious one, the drama queen.
    Wsj Books Staff, WSJ, 23 June 2021
  • Mark Part of Tommy and Sincere’s crew, and a live wire.
    Okla Jones, Essence, 4 Nov. 2023
  • They were trapped for about an hour while a live wire lay on top of and behind her house.
    Justine McDaniel, Washington Post, 25 Mar. 2023
  • Now pull the switch forward and out of the box, and use the detector to search for other live wires.
    Roy Berendson, Popular Mechanics, 17 Oct. 2018
  • In Warren, the young boy wanted to swing from a live wire hanging around four feet off the ground.
    Frank Witsil, Detroit Free Press, 30 Aug. 2022
  • Why hire such a live wire performer to play someone so grim?
    Darren Franich, EW.com, 22 Mar. 2021
  • We Energies was called to repair live wires on the ground.
    Milwaukee, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 25 Oct. 2017
  • But banning shifts is a live wire with good arguments for and against it.
    Peter Abraham, BostonGlobe.com, 16 Apr. 2022
  • Remain in the water, and a live wire will electrocute you.
    David Fear, Rolling Stone, 12 May 2021
  • Reading this novel is like holding a live wire in your hand.
    Hillary Kelly, Vulture, 16 Apr. 2021
  • Clark is a live wire, making baskets from the logo and zipping passes all over the court.
    Nancy Armour, USA TODAY, 28 Mar. 2023
  • The outages were aimed at keeping power off live wires on a warm and windy day, ideal for the spread of wildfires.
    NBC News, 9 Oct. 2019
  • The Adonis is David Sparsholt, a young rower up at Oxford whose lovely body proves a live wire.
    Anthony Domestico, San Francisco Chronicle, 29 Mar. 2018
  • Power is cut to thousands of people, to avoid live wires going down in the Santa Ana winds.
    Dan Zak, Washington Post, 4 Nov. 2019
  • The fire department arrived and saw the live wire was partially in the roadway and across a sidewalk.
    cleveland, 27 Aug. 2021
  • The electro-magnetic field around a live wire will cause this tool to beep and light up, showing the presence of AC voltage.
    Roy Berendsohn, Popular Mechanics, 29 Apr. 2016
  • When the crew tried to reset the battery system, one of the crew members sustained an electric shock from touching a live wire.
    Laura Yan, Popular Mechanics, 23 June 2018
  • Officials asked people to stay out of the area for just under two hours because there were active, live wires down on the street.
    Lauren Hernández, SFChronicle.com, 19 Nov. 2019
  • The striker has been brilliant in pre-season, performing with great pace and vigour - a real live wire.
    SI.com, 4 Aug. 2019
  • Power lines lay across the truck and the road, causing a hazard for fire crews who had to wait for SDG&E crews to de-activate the live wires, an official said.
    Pauline Repard, San Diego Union-Tribune, 9 Aug. 2019
  • Even after fourteen years, the performance feels like touching a live wire.
    Helen Shaw, The New Yorker, 31 Oct. 2022
  • Yank out the cable and the live wires will disconnect before the earth, further reducing the chance of anyone being fried.
    The Economist, 6 Feb. 2020
  • Studs can be helpful for hanging a heavy mirror, but be sure to avoid drilling through pipes or inserting a screw into live wires.
    Kristina McGuirk, Better Homes & Gardens, 13 Sep. 2023
  • While Kruse's style was more wry and understated, Krone proved to be a live wire auctioneer.
    Pamela Chelin, Billboard, 21 Oct. 2019
  • That disconnected the live wire and saved Varcadipane’s life.
    Connie McKinney, USA TODAY, 13 Oct. 2021
  • It was flanked by a poster of Bob Marley and a photograph of my father, both onstage, both throwing their dreadlocks like live wires into the air.
    Safiya Sinclair, The New Yorker, 31 July 2023
  • As the events of this most recent meeting of the DNC showed, questions of race and identity are still very much a live wire in intra-party disagreement.
    Seth Masket, Vox, 26 Aug. 2018

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'live wire.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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