Ternary oxides have the advantages of tuning their physical properties by varying the proportion of each component, thus attracting great research attention in recent years. As an example, we demonstrated in this work the investigation on the electronic transport, surface wettability and chemical sensing properties of zigzag Zn₂SnO₄ nanowires, which were synthesized from a thermal evaporation method. Structural characterizations reveal that these nanowires are single crystals with average diameters of ∼100 nm and grow along the [11] direction. Single nanowire-based field effect transistor was fabricated, showing an on/off ratio of 10⁴ and a device mobility of 17.2 cm² (V s)⁻¹. Besides, these Zn₂SnO₄ nanowire-based devices showed a substantial increase in conductance upon exposure to UV light. Thin films of the zigzag Zn₂SnO₄ nanowires were configured as high performance sensors to detect hosts of chemicals with detection limits down to the 1 ppm level, especially for ethanol and acetone, implying promising applications in detecting toxic volatile organic compounds.