Heisenbug
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 A software bug which fails to manifest itself or manifests differently during debugging.
"I recently encountered a particularly infuriating Heisenbug. A large program, when given a large input, was just mysteriously dying. Of course, I ran it under the debugger. The mystery deepened: the program returned quietly to the debugger."
- 2 Alternative letter-case form of heisenbug. alt-of
Example
More examples"I recently encountered a particularly infuriating Heisenbug. A large program, when given a large input, was just mysteriously dying. Of course, I ran it under the debugger. The mystery deepened: the program returned quietly to the debugger."
Etymology
(ca. 1983) Blend of Heisenberg + bug. Named for the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, which states very roughly that any attempt to measure the position of a subatomic particle will disrupt its movement, making it harder to predict.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.