Origin of the word "glitch"

Question

glitch /ɡliCH/

noun: glitch; plural noun: glitches

1. a sudden, usually temporary malfunction or irregularity of equipment.

"a draft version was lost in a computer glitch"

1.1 an unexpected setback in a plan.

"this has been the first real glitch they've encountered in a three months' tour"

Verb

1. suffer a sudden malfunction or irregularity.

"her job involves troubleshooting when systems glitch"

_{(Oxford Dictionaries)}

According to Google:

The word "glitch" was used more widely known in the late 1900s, in the US, of an unknown origin. The original sense was ‘a sudden surge of current,’ hence ‘malfunction, hitch’ in astronautical slang.

'Glitch' has an unknown origin but was more common in the US.

What is the origin of the word glitch?

Answer 1

I'm surprised that no-one has mentioned the Online Etymology Dictionary so far. It gives a plausible origin in a Yiddish word that itself comes from German.

glitch (n.)

1959, American English, possibly from Yiddish glitsh "a slip," from glitshn "to slip," from German glitschen, and related gleiten "to glide" (see glide (v.)). Perhaps directly from German. Apparently it began as technical jargon among radio and television engineers, but was popularized and given a broader meaning c. 1962 by the U.S. space program.

All you get today is "glitch" wherever splicing occurs. "Glitch" is slang for the "momentary jiggle" that occurs at the editing point if the sync pulses don't match exactly in the splice. [Sponsor, Volume 13, June 20, 1959]

Answer 2

A couple of Google Books search results yield matches from as early as 1953. From Television Magazine, volume 10 (1953) [snippet view]:

No more a-c power line "glitches" (horizontal-bar interference)— because camera filaments are operated from a separate d-c source.

A check of the Internet confirms that Television Magazine began in 1944, which would make 1953 the expected year for volume 10 to appear. Also unconfirmed, but probably from 1953 or 1954 is this instance from Journal of the Audio Engineering Society, volumes 1-2 (1953–1954[?]):

The character of the noise voltage was found to be rather important, and tests showed that a smooth type of hiss gave best results. Generators having high-level spikes or "glitches," even when followed by some degree of limiting in succeeding amplifiers, did not produce as good an effect as those having smooth, random electrical noise output.

The earliest indisputable instance of the term in Google Books search results, however, appears to be from an advertisement for Bell Telephone Systems that ran in (among other periodicals) the October 15, 1955, issue of The Billboard:

They Talk of Pigeons and Glitch

"Pigeons" are not birds to a Bell System technician. They are impulse noises causing spots which seem to fly across the TV picture. And when he talks of "glitch" with a fellow technician, he means a low frequency interference which appears as a narrow horizontal bar moving vertically through the picture.

Robrt Chapman & Barbara Kipfer, Dictionary of American Slang, third edition (1995) trace the term only as far back as 1962, but this reference work identifies the source as being "fr[om] German glitschen (or Yiddish glitshen), "slip."

Answer 3

I first saw the word glitch used in a Mad magazine when I was a child. I cannot cite the exact year or issue as that was over 40 years ago. They did not use it a spike in an electronic device. They used it as a "sound effect" when someone stepped in poo and slid so it was used in its correct context.

Answer 4

Etymology of Glitch: I heard from my Brother in Law who retired as a Chief Petty Officer that GLITCH is an acronym for Gremlin Loose In The Computer Housing and may date back as far a WWII.