General
pigtail
What does pigtail mean?
A short length of wire spliced into a wire-nutted bundle, with its free end landing on a device terminal. Lets you join two or more circuit conductors together and feed a single device off them — instead of looping the circuit through the device itself (where a bad receptacle would break everything downstream). Code-required on multi-wire branch circuits.
"Pigtail the hots in the box so I can swap the outlet later without killing power to the rest of the run."
Frequently asked questions
What does pigtail mean in wiring?
A pigtail is a short jumper wire used to connect a device to a circuit without breaking the main run.
How do you use pigtail in a sentence?
"Add a pigtail off the neutral so you can tie in the new outlet."
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