Originally Posted by
Tom Brennan
"In English...a "wire" is a single conductor, be it multiple strands or a solid."
Of course a wire need not even be a conductor such as in wire rope which is also called "cable".
Midwesterner that I am I hold with plain speaking. Point being that when some audiophiles want to make more of something than it really is they use highfalutin terms like speaker "cable" and "interconnect".
If you buy it at the hardware store it's wire, if you buy the same thing at a hi-fi store it's a cable.