noun- A minor malfunction, mishap, or technical problem; a snag: a computer glitch; a navigational glitch; a glitch in the negotiations.
- A false or spurious electronic signal caused by a brief, unwanted surge of electric power.
- Astronomy A sudden change in the period of rotation of a neutron star.
Origin:
Origin: Probably from Yiddish glitsh, a slip, lapse
Origin: , from glitshn, to slip
Origin: , from Middle High German glitschen
Origin: , alteration of glīten, to glide
Origin: , from Old High German glītan; see ghel-2 in Indo-European roots
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Related Forms:
Word History: Although
glitch seems a word that people would always have found useful, it is first recorded in English in 1962 in the writing of John Glenn:
“Another term we adopted to describe some of our problems was ‘glitch.’ ” Glenn then gives the technical sense of the word the astronauts had adopted:
“Literally, a glitch is a spike or change in voltage in an electrical current.” It is easy to see why the astronauts, who were engaged in a highly technical endeavor, might have generalized a term from electronics to cover other technical problems. Since then
glitch has passed beyond technical use and now covers a wide variety of malfunctions and mishaps.