glitch -
noun and verb (Science and Technology) In slang (originally in the US): noun: A snag, a
hitch or hold-up; a
technical error. intransitive verb: To malfunction or go wrong; to
suffer a 'hiccup'. Etymology: A figurative use of a word that originally (in the early sixties) meant 'a surge of current'--an occurrence which could lead to unpredictable behaviour from electronic instruments or even complete crashes of computer systems. The word's ultimate origins are rather obscure: it has been claimed that it is borrowed from
Yiddish glitsch, which means 'a slip' in its literal sense of losing one's footing, but this theory has been discredited. History and Usage: As mentioned above,
glitch was first used in the early sixties, mainly in the slang of people involved in the US space programme. From there it was taken into computing slang, and by the early eighties had
become a fashionable
word in the general press for any kind of snag or hold-up, as well as developing more specialized meanings in
astronomy and audio recording. It is now used freely in the media in the UK as well as the US, but
is still regarded as
an Americanism by many British readers.
Glitch has a derived adjective
glitchy which can be used of programs, systems, etc. that are particularly
prone to malfunction. Elsewhere, equipment
glitches in the Iranian desert force American commandos to abort the mission to rescue 53 hostages in Tehran. Life Fall 1989, p.
15 The
only glitch in the whole Ararat countdown was the failure to get the
Project recognized as a charitable institution. Julian Barnes A
History of the World in 10
Chapters (1989), p.
267 No matter how carefully I set the unit up it always glitched a little, especially when using the Diatonic Shift. Music Technology Apr. 1990, p. 42
