galvanize: [19] The verb galvanize commemorates the work of Italian physicist Luigi Galvani (1737–98), who in 1762 discovered voltaic electricity by attaching the legs of dead frogs to pairs of different metals. It was first used literally, for the production of muscular spasms by electrical means (Sydney Smith in 1825: ‘Galvanize a frog, don’t galvanize a tiger’), but by the mid-19th century it was being employed figuratively, for ‘stimulate, spur’. The sense ‘coat electrolytically with metal’, dates from the 1830s. [galvanize etymology, galvanize origin, 英语词源]