千年虫

千年蟲
qiānniánchóng
noun #35,206

Meanings

  1. 1 Y2K bug; the millennium bug (the year-2000 computer date problem)

Examples

Yījiǔjiǔjiǔ nián niándǐ, quán shìjiè dōu zài dānxīn qiānniánchóng.
At the end of 1999, the whole world was worried about the Y2K bug.
Qiānniánchóng wèntí zuìhòu méiyǒu yǐnfā dà zāinàn.
The Y2K problem ended up not causing a major disaster.

Tips

history
千年虫 literally 'millennium bug' is the Chinese calque of the English 'Y2K bug'. Older systems stored years as two digits, so '00' threatened to roll over to 1900 instead of 2000. Massive remediation efforts in 1999 made the actual rollover almost uneventful — itself a topic of historical debate.

Stroke Order

qiān
nián
chóng