millennium bug

English

electronic sign reading January 1900 instead of January 2000

Proper noun

millennium bug

1. (computing) A design flaw in computer systems that represented years as two digits (e.g. 84 for 1984), which could cause date calculations to fail if they involved years later than 1999.

   Mr Johnson told Tory supporters at a private dinner that gloomy economic forecasts were "mumbo jumbo" and the Northern Irish border row had been blown out of proportion, as fears over disruption to supplies of food and medicines were “pure millennium bug stuff”.

Synonyms

• Y2K bug
• year 2000 problem

Translations

a design flaw in computer systems which which could cause date calculations to fail after 1999

• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 千年蟲／千年虫 (qiānniánchóng)

• Dutch: millenniumbug (nl) m
• Greek: έντομο της Χιλιετηρίδας (éntomo tis Chilietirídas)
• Japanese: 2000年問題 (2000年問題)
• Portuguese: bug do milénio m (Portugal), bug do milênio m (Brazil)

See also

• Appendix:American Dialect Society words of the year