English edit

Etymology edit

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

Pronunciation edit

Adjective edit

galvanic (comparative more galvanic, superlative most galvanic)

  1. Of or pertaining to galvanism; electric.
    • 1871, Harriet Beecher Stowe, chapter 22, in Pink and White Tyranny:
      [S]he was quivering like a galvanic battery with the suppressed force of some powerful emotion.
  2. (by extension) Energetic; vigorous.
    • 1862, Anthony Trollope, chapter 6, in North America:
      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, chapter 19, in Salthaven:
      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”, in 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.
  3. Of a current that is not alternating, as opposed to faradic.
    • 2005, Carolyn Thomas de la Pena, chapter 3, in The Body Electric: How Strange Machines Built the Modern American:
      Physicians used galvanic currents, which required only a galvanic power source, and faradic treatments, which utilized an "alternating" induction coil.

Synonyms edit

Derived terms edit

Related terms edit

Translations edit

Romanian edit

Etymology edit

Borrowed from French galvanique.

Adjective edit

galvanic m or n (feminine singular galvanică, masculine plural galvanici, feminine and neuter plural galvanice)

  1. galvanic

Declension edit