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jitter

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jitter¹

  • /ˈd͡ʒɪtə(ɹ)/ UK
  • /ˈd͡ʒɪtɚ/ US
  • [ˈd͡ʒɪɾɚ] US

Rhymes with -ɪtə(ɹ)

Where it comes from

Possibly alteration of chitter (“to tremble, shiver”), from Middle English chittern (“to twitter, chatter”). Ultimately onomatopoeic; compare didder and teeter as well as German zittern.

noun jitters

  1. countable, uncountable A nervous action; a tic.
  2. countable, in plural, often, uncountable, with definite article A state of nervousness. That creepy movie gave me the jitters.
  3. countable, uncountable An abrupt and unwanted variation of one or more signal characteristics. Now you have mirror-clear TV without picture flopover, jitter, tear!
  4. countable, uncountable A random positioning of data points to avoid visual overlap.

verb jitters · jittering · jittered

  1. intransitive To be nervous.
  2. To position data points randomly to avoid visual overlap.

Similar: fidget

jitter²

noun jitters

  1. A program or routine that performs jitting; a just-in-time compiler.

Thesaurus

verb

Similar: fidget

Translations

Every language

noun nervous action; a tic

Españoltic nervioso
Portuguêstique nervoso
Françaistic nerveux
DeutschZittern

noun state of nervousness; the jitters

Españoltembleque
DeutschNervosität, Aufgeregtheit

noun telecommunications: abrupt and unwanted variation of signal characteristics

Portuguêsjitter
Françaisgigue
Русскийдрожание drožanije, джиттер džitter

verb To be nervous

Deutschbibbern, zittern

Talk about this word

Cite this
MLA

"jitter." Wiktionary, via Micwyn, micwyn.com/word/jitter. Accessed 6 Nov. 2026.

APA

jitter. (n.d.). In Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Retrieved November 6, 2026, from https://micwyn.com/word/jitter

Chicago

"jitter." Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Accessed November 6, 2026. https://micwyn.com/word/jitter.

BibTeX
@misc{jitter_2026,
  title = {jitter},
  howpublished = {Wiktionary, via Micwyn},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://micwyn.com/word/jitter},
  urldate = {2026-11-06}
}