glitch

glitch /glich/  [from German `glitzschig' to slip, via
   Yiddish `glitshen', to slide or skid] 1. n. A sudden interruption
   in electric service, sanity, continuity, or program function.
   Sometimes recoverable.  An interruption in electric service is
   specifically called a `power glitch' (also {power hit}), of
   grave concern because it usually crashes all the computers.  In
   jargon, though, a hacker who got to the middle of a sentence and
   then forgot how he or she intended to complete it might say,
   "Sorry, I just glitched".  2. vi. To commit a glitch.  See
   {gritch}.  3. vt.  [Stanford] To scroll a display screen, esp.
   several lines at a time.  {{WAITS}} terminals used to do this in
   order to avoid continuous scrolling, which is distracting to the
   eye.  4. obs.  Same as {magic cookie}, sense 2.

   All these uses of `glitch' derive from the specific technical
   meaning the term has in the electronic hardware world, where it is
   now techspeak.  A glitch can occur when the inputs of a circuit
   change, and the outputs change to some {random} value for some
   very brief time before they settle down to the correct value.  If
   another circuit inspects the output at just the wrong time, reading
   the random value, the results can be very wrong and very hard to
   debug (a glitch is one of many causes of electronic {heisenbug}s).