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dither

Pronunciation: /ˈdɪðə/

The English word “dither” has 10 meanings listed here.

verb

  1. To tremble, shake, or shiver.
  2. To be uncertain or unable to make a decision; to vacillate, hesitate, or delay.
  3. To do something nervously.
  4. To use dot patterns in an image or graphic to simulate colors or shades not in the system palette.
  5. To intentionally add noise to a signal to remove artifacts caused by digitization.

noun

  1. Trembling, shaking, or shivering.
  2. A state of nervous excitement.
  3. The state of being undecided; indecision; vacillation.
  4. A form of noise intentionally added to remove artifacts caused by digitization.
  5. The use of dot patterns in an image or graphic to approximate colors not available in the system palette.

Etymology

Variant of didder, from Middle English dideren (“to tremble”). Compare Middle English bididren, bididdren (“to seduce, deceive”), from Old English bedidrian, bedyderian (“to deceive, trick”). Alternatively, perhaps with expressive voicing from *titeren, from Proto-Germanic *titrōną. If so, then a doublet of teeter and cognate with Old High German zittarōn (German zittern) and Old Norse titra…

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Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.