Word of the Day: GALVANIZE

Shock into action!

galvanize (verb) - to stimulate, startle, or shock into action; to excite, engage, or motivate [gal-vuh-nahyz]

• galvanize also means to coat a material like steel with rust-resistant zinc

• galvanic means of or pertaining to electrical current; shocking, exciting, or breathtaking

BREAKDOWN: Luigi Galvani was an early researcher into bioelectricity. His 1780 discovery that the application of electricity would cause the muscles of dead frogs to twitch led to the initial definition of galvanize as to medically stimulate or treat with induced direct current.

“The despair is there; now it's up to us to go in and rub raw the sores of discontent, galvanize them for radical social change.” —Saul Alinsky

[Our Wednesday Wildcards are fascinating and important words that are not necessarily derived from classical roots.]