The thermocouple wire or cable is used to manufacture thermocouple probes in order to sense temperature using the point of cold junction compensation (cjc end).

On the other side, as it has been explain in this other article, a thermocouple is a sensor for measuring temperature, that consists of two dissimilar metals that are joined together at the sensing end. Different thermocouple types (e.g. J or K type thermocouple wire) use different mixtures of metals in the cable. At the cjc end, the millivolt value provided by the thermocouple represents the difference in temperature of the sensing end as compared to the cjc end (also called the reference end).