Pigtail
A short jumper wire connecting a device to the circuit wires in a box, so the device hangs off the circuit instead of carrying it through. Also the name of the proper aluminum-wiring repair.
When several cables meet in an outlet box, the wrong way is to use the outlet's screws as a splice point: the circuit then flows through the device, and one worn outlet kills everything downstream. The right way is to splice the circuit wires together with a short pigtail running to the device. The device becomes a leaf, not a link.
This tiny distinction explains a classic symptom: half the bedroom dead because one outlet upstream failed or a backstabbed connection let go. It is also vocabulary worth knowing in aluminum-wiring homes, where "pigtailing" means joining a short copper lead to the aluminum branch wire with a rated connector so devices only ever see copper.
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- Romex (NM Cable) : The standard cable inside modern American homes: two or three insulated conductors plus a bare ground, wrapped in a plastic sheath.
- Wire Gauge (AWG) : The thickness of a wire, measured in American Wire Gauge.
- Conduit : Protective tubing (metal or PVC) that individual wires are pulled through, used where cable would be exposed to damage, weather or burial: garages, outdoors, underground runs.
- Knob and Tube Wiring : The original residential wiring method (roughly 1880 – 1940s): individual conductors on ceramic knobs and tubes, with no ground wire and air-cooled design that modern insulation defeats.