Named after Luigi Galvani, whose 1791 electricity experiments on dead frogs' legs spawned both a science and a metaphor for shocking action.
To shock or excite someone into taking action; also, to coat iron or steel with a protective layer of zinc.
From French 'galvaniser,' from the name of Luigi Galvani (1737–1798), the Italian physician and physicist who discovered that electrical stimulation could make dead frogs' legs twitch. His experiments, published in 1791, electrified the scientific world and led to the development of the battery by his rival Alessandro Volta. The surname Galvani derives from a Germanic personal name. Key
Galvani's experiments with frog legs directly inspired Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1818) — the idea that electricity could reanimate dead tissue came from watching dead frogs twitch under electrical current, leading to the fictional dream of reanimating a corpse.