Probably from Yiddish 'glitsh' (a slip), from German 'glitschen' (to slide) — entering English through NASA in the 1960s.
A sudden, usually temporary malfunction or fault of equipment or a plan.
Likely from Yiddish "גליטש" (glitsh, a slip, a slide), from "glitshn" (to slip, to slide), from Middle High German "glitschen" (to slide, to glide), from Proto-Germanic *glid- (to glide, to slip), ultimately from PIE *gʰleidʰ- (to glide, to slip). The word entered American English in the mid-20th century, first documented in the aerospace and electronics communities of the 1960s. Astronaut John Glenn is often credited with popularising it in his 1962 account of the Mercury space programme, where he described electrical voltage spikes as "glitches." The PIE root *gʰleidʰ- also produced English "glide" (from Old English "glīdan"), German "gleiten" (to glide), and Dutch "glijden" (to slide). The Yiddish transmission path is typical of many American English technical and
'Glitch' entered mainstream English from the American space program. John Glenn used it in his 1962 account of the Mercury missions: 'a glitch... a spike or change in voltage in an electrical circuit.' Astronaut jargon — itself borrowed from Yiddish — became the universal term for technical malfunction. From shtetl to space capsule to smartphone: the word has slipped (appropriately) through remarkably different worlds.