Upon hearing a friend use the word galvanize today to mean “urge into action”, I had a moment of realization that I could attribute to my days studying AP Chemistry. The verb can also refer to the process of coating a metal with electricity, with the newer definition emerging from the idea of sparking something into movement. This word entered the English language in the early nineteenth century from the French noun galvanisme, which was named after Luigi Galvani, an Italian polymath who, along with his wife Lucia, conducted pioneering research into bioelectricity. Initially, Galvani wanted to term it “animal electricity”, but it was ultimately named after him and his wife based on a suggestion from Alessandro Volta, the scientist after whom volts are named. Interestingly, the surname Galvani can be traced back to the first name Gavin, which may have origins in a Celtic word meaning “hawk”.
