Galvanic

Pronunciation

• IPA: /ɡælˈvænɪk/

Origin

From French galvanique, after physiologist Luigi Galvani (1737–1798) + -ique.

Full definition of galvanic

Adjective

1. Of or pertaining to galvanism; electric.
• 1871, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Pink and White Tyranny, ch. 22:She was quivering like a galvanic battery with the suppressed force of some powerful emotion.
2. (by extension) Energetic, vigorous.
• 1862, Anthony Trollope, North America, ch. 6:Whether the town existed during Mr. Tapley's time I have not been able to learn. . . . At that moment a galvanic motion had been pumped into it by the war movements of General Halleck.
• 1908, W. W. Jacobs, Salthaven, ch. 19:Then he clenched his fists, and, with an agility astonishing in a man of his years, indulged in a series of galvanic little hops in front of the astounded Peter Truefitt.
• 2014 April 4, Zachary Woolfe, "Music: How the Centuries Will Play Out," New York Times (retrieved 12 May 2014)But the main event may well end up being the performance of Brahms’s galvanic Piano Concerto No. 1, with the exhilarating British pianist Paul Lewis.

Synonyms

• galvanical

Derived terms

• galvanically

Related terms

• galvanize