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galvanize

/ˈɡælvənaɪ̯z/verb

galvanize is spelled G-A-L-V-A-N-I-Z-E. The wrong spelling people search most is galvinize: about 50 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 21 of all searches for the word. Galvanize is a verb meaning “To coat with a layer of metal by electrochemical means”.

How many letters and syllables are in galvanize?

Letters9: G-A-L-V-A-N-I-Z-E
Syllables3 (from its American pronunciation)
In writingabout once in every 5 million words; the 65,913th most frequent word form
Wrong spellings searched1; the most searched, galvinize, about 50 Bing searches a month (all of them)

Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026).

How do you spell galvanize?

Galvanize is spelled G-A-L-V-A-N-I-Z-E. One wrong spelling is searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 21 of the searches for galvanize in either form.

galvanizethe right spelling1,000 searches a month
galvinizei in place of a50 searches a month

Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026). Wrong spellings are taken from Wiktionary entries tagged "misspelling" and its obsolete or nonstandard forms, Wikipedia's Lists of common misspellings and the codespell dictionary, then measured. The proofreader's marks show the change that corrects each one.

How common is galvanize?

Galvanize appears about once in every 5 million words in written English, the 65,913th most frequent word form in the list.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

How do you pronounce galvanize?

  • /ˈɡælvənaɪ̯z/

Galvanize has 3 syllables (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-galvanise.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Forms of galvanize

  • galvanizes present, singular, he/she/it
  • galvanizing participle, present
  • galvanized participle, past
  • galvanise UK

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What does galvanize mean?

The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).

verb

  1. 1

    datedTo coat with a layer of metal by electrochemical means.

  2. 2

    datedTo coat with a layer of zinc (for rust resistance) by electrochemical means.

    We then galvanize the steel so that the zinc coating will sacrificially take the corrosion for many years.

  3. 3

    To shock or stimulate into sudden activity, as if by electric shock.

    The girl’s picture helped galvanize public opinion against the administration’s policy.

  4. 4

    archaicTo electrify, as by galvanism.

    The agitations resembled the grinnings and writhings of a galvanized corpse, not the struggles of an athletic man.

  5. 5

    USTo switch sides between Union and Confederate in the American Civil War.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

Galvanize in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Frenchgalvaniser (to coat with rust-resistant zinc)
Germanverzinken (to coat with rust-resistant zinc), galvanisieren (to coat with a thin layer of metal by…), aufrütteln, aufschrecken, wachrütteln, einen Impuls setzen (to shock or stimulate into sudden activity)
Portuguesegalvanizar (to coat with rust-resistant zinc)
Spanishgalvanizar (to coat with rust-resistant zinc), espabilar, asustar, estimular (to shock or stimulate into sudden activity)

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does galvanize come from?

Learned borrowing from French galvaniser. By surface analysis, galvano- + -ize. Named after Italian physiologist Luigi Aloisio Galvani (1737–1798).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What to look up after galvanize