Buggy Software Really Is Named After Insects
A buggy is a light carriage or a pushchair. As an adjective it means full of faults, from bug in the sense of a defect.
A buggy is a light carriage, a child's pushchair or an off-road vehicle. As an adjective it means full of faults, and the engineering sense of *bug* is older than computers: Thomas Edison used it for defects in his equipment in the 1870s. The famous moth taped into a Harvard logbook in 1947 was a joke that worked precisely because the term already existed.
- A light carriage. *A horse and buggy.*
- A pushchair (British). *Fold the buggy.*
- An off-road vehicle. *A dune buggy.*
- Full of faults. *Buggy software.*
- Bug — a defect. *A serious bug.*
Word forms
| Form | Word | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Noun | buggy | A beach buggy. |
| Plural | buggies | Two buggies. |
| Adjective | buggy | A buggy release. |
| Related | bug | Fix the bug. |
| Related | debug | Debug the code. |
- The buggy folds into the boot.British pushchair.
- The first release was extremely buggy.Software.
- Edison wrote about bugs in his devices in the 1870s.History.
Where the software bug came from
- Edison used bug for faults in equipment in the 1870s
- Engineers used it widely before computing existed
- 1947 — a moth was found in a Harvard relay and taped into the logbook
- The note read first actual case of bug being found — the joke depends on the word already being familiar
- Debug followed naturally, and is now the standard verb
The carriage sense is recorded from the 1770s, origin unknown. The adjective comes from *bug*, an insect, used for a defect from the nineteenth century.
Did a real moth cause the first computer bug?
A moth was found in a Harvard relay in 1947 and taped into the logbook, but the word bug already meant a fault. The note was a joke about that.
Is a buggy the same as a pushchair?
In British English, yes. Americans say stroller.