Cadmium telluride (CdTe) nanowires were grown on silicon substrate (100) by thermal evaporation method. The synthesised CdTe nanowires were characterised by X-ray diffraction, field emission scanning electron microscope, energy-dispersive analysis of X-ray, and photoluminescence techniques. The field emission characteristics have been investigated at room temperature. The J-E and It characteristics were measured in a planar diode configuration at the base pressure of 1 × 10 −8 mbar. Turn-on field defined for the emission current density of 0.1 µA/cm 2 has been found to be 2.2 V/µm and on the application of high applied electric field of 7.8 V/µm maximum current density of 210 µA/cm 2 has been achieved. The It measurement has been studied at the preset of 1 µA emission current for the duration of 3 h. Overall nature of emission current has been seen to stable for duration of the measurement. To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is a first report on field emission study of CdTe nanowires.