Cable-knit describes wool clothes — most often a sweater — with a thick, raised pattern of lines that cross and twist, like ropes laid over each other. Knitters make that look with a special stitch; the raised twists are called cables. A cable-knit sweater feels chunky and warm, and you see it a lot in winter clothes. The word is an adjective: a cable-knit sweater, a cable-knit pattern. Though actually, it has nothing to do with the electric cables in the wall — the pattern is only named after rope-like cables. You will also hear cable knit without the hyphen, but the hyphenated form is the usual dictionary shape.