Glitch

Etymology

The origin is disputed but most likely Yiddish glitsh (“a slip, a slippery place,” from glitshn, “to slip”), reinforced by German glitschen (“to slide”). The word surfaced in American English around 1960 and was popularized by engineers and astronauts to name a sudden electrical or system fault.

noun · /GLICH/
A brief, often unpredictable malfunction, especially in a machine or system.
What it names
The momentary hiccup — the flicker, freeze, or wrong result that comes and goes, sometimes without ever recurring.
Example
A glitch in the checkout page charged everyone twice before anyone noticed.
Related idea
A bug is a flaw in the code itself; a glitch is a brief, often unreproducible hiccup that may clear on its own.