Achieving high activity and stability oxygen evolution reaction (OER) catalysts to optimize the efficiency of metal−air battery, water splitting and other energy conversion devices, remains a formidable challenge. Herein, we demonstrate the metallic porous nanowires arrays with abundant defects via nitrogen and copper codoped CoS1.97 nanowires (N−CuCoS1.97 NWs). The N−CuCoS1.97 NWs can serve as an excellent OER self-supported electrode with an overpotential of 280 mV (j = 10 mA cm−2) and remarkable long-term stability. The X-ray absorption near-edge structure (XANES) and X-ray photoelectron spectrum (XPS) measurements confirmed the surface lattice oxygen created on the N−CuCoS1.97 NWs during OER. Then, the density function theory (DFT) results evident that lattice oxygen constructed surface of N−CuCoS1.97 NWs has more favorable OER energetic profiles and absorption for reaction intermediate. More importantly, the flexible and wearable Zn−air battery fabricated by the N−CuCoS1.97NWs shows excellent rechargeable and mechanical stability, which can be used in portable mobile device.