A glitch is a small, unexpected problem or error, especially in technology. When a video game freezes for a second or your character walks through a wall that should be solid, that's a glitch. When a website suddenly displays scrambled text or an app closes by itself for no reason, you're experiencing a glitch.

Now it describes any minor malfunction: a glitchy video might stutter and skip, or a glitchy microphone might crackle with static.

What makes something a glitch rather than just a mistake or breakdown is that it's usually temporary and relatively harmless. A glitch in your presentation software might make one slide appear twice, but the program still works. A glitch in a traffic light might make it blink oddly for a few seconds before returning to normal. The computer hasn't crashed, and the system hasn't failed completely; it just hiccuped.

People also use glitch more broadly for any small disruption. If plans change unexpectedly, someone might say there's been “a glitch in the schedule.” The word suggests something fixable, not catastrophic: annoying, perhaps, but not the end of the world.