2 meanings
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1 —as in:
galvanized into action
Definition
to stimulate to action- The event is intended to galvanize support for the fight against man-made global warming and climate change.
galvanize = to stimulate to action
Other Uses (with this meaning)
- he cried seeming galvanized into sudden life.Gilbert K. Chesterton -- The Wisdom Of Father Brown
- Football linemen are motivated by a more complicated, self- determining series of factors than the simple fear of humiliation in the public gaze, which is the emotion that galvanizes the backs and receivers.Merlin Olsen
- I understand that, but I do not understand what it is that galvanizes you in this manner.Dumas, Alexandre -- The Count of Monte Cristo
- It was a mistake; the radio had suddenly gone quiet, and my voice ringing in the abrupt, releasing hush galvanized them all.John Knowles -- A Separate Peace
- The words galvanized Bernard into violent and unseemly activity.Aldous Huxley -- Brave New World
galvanized = stimulated to action
galvanized = stimulated to action
2 —as in:
galvanized steel
Definition
to cover steel or iron with zinc- The screws were supposed to be galvanized, but they rusted anyway.
galvanized = coated with zinc
Other Uses (with this meaning)
- The increase in the demand for zinc is attributed to an increase in the demand for galvanized steel.
- ...the dog-food gave out, and a toothless old squaw offered to trade them a few pounds of frozen horse-hide for the Colt's revolver that kept the big hunting-knife company at Hal's hip. A poor substitute for food was this hide, just as it had been stripped from the starved horses of the cattlemen six months back. In its frozen state it was more like strips of galvanized iron, and when a dog wrestled it into his stomach it thawed into thin and innutritious leathery strings and into a mass of short hair, irritating and indigestible.Jack London -- The Call of the Wild
- THE SHOP IN FRANKLIN was ready to roof, so two days after Christmas I forced my toe, still crooked and black, into a steel-toed boot, then spent the morning on a roof driving threading screws into galvanized tin.Tara Westover -- Educated
galvanized = coated with zinc (to prevent rust)
Less commonly:
Much more rarely, but especially in classic literature, the word may reference Galvani's experiment of 1771 in which he made a dead frog leg twitch by applying electric current.