to galvanize
5
7.1
- verb
- /ˈɡælvəˌnaɪz/
- Specialized
:
galvanizar
- The bolts, anchors, and washers are cadmium plated or galvanized steel.
- galvanized steel
- galvanized iron
- galvanized wire
Examples
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For outdoor furniture, choose pieces made of galvanized metal to prevent rust.
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Ranchers pump water from wells into open galvanized tanks for their cattle.
Academic text (1994) -
And is that galvanized steel?
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The blades cannot cut through the galvanized cable.
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OK, this is galvanized steel, like ordinary household plumbing.
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Walls are composite concrete mix in a galvanized frame, 18 inches thick.
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The rain was flushing through the galvanized gutter above the window.
Fiction book (1991) -
Heavy, twenty-foot lengths of galvanized pipe were strewn on the floor like jack-straws.
Fiction book (1992) -
I struggled along with a leaky galvanized watering can because the green plastic replacements were hideous.
Academic text (1994) -
The contractor recommended using galvanized nails to ensure the roof would withstand the rain.
Synonyms
1
7.5
To cover metal with a thin metal layer to protect it from rust
To put a thin layer of zinc on a metal surface to stop rust
Phrasal Verbs
How Protected
Surface Forms
Morphology
galvanize = galvanic (opaque) = galvan + ize
The sense 'to coat with zinc' is a specialized industrial meaning whose connection to 'galvanic' (electric phenomena) is not obvious to most learners, so the derivation is not readily inferable.
Etymology
Galvanize also came to be used for metal work because early ways to protect metal used electric and chemical methods named after Galvani. So to galvanize metal is to give it a zinc 'coat' to stop it from rusting.