tetanize

Verb

tetanize (third-person singular simple present tetanizes, present participle tetanizing, simple past and past participle tetanized)

1. (transitive) To throw (a muscle etc.) into a state of permanent contraction; to cause tetanus in.
   • Thus, on tetanizing an only slightly irritable nerve, applied to the deriving cushions by its longitudinal and transverse sections very near to the exciting electrodes, with the alternating currents of the Inversor arranged so that its closing value in the unit of time is brought as near as...1868, Charles E. Morgan, Electro Physiology and Therapeutics
   • There is, in short, little doubt that the constituent of mammalian muscle which liberates carbon dioxide on prolonged boiling, is the same as that which is decomposed in tetanus and rigor; for if muscles are tetanized or made rigid, while at the same time opportunity is offered for th escape of the...1880, Arthur Gamgee, A Text-book of the Physiological Chemistry of the Animal Body