Technical Debt
/ˈtek-nɪ-kəl det/
noun — "the interest you pay on shortcuts you didn’t mean to take."
Technical Debt is the accumulation of future cost created when software is built in a way that is expedient today but suboptimal for long-term maintenance, scalability, or clarity. It is not necessarily a mistake in the moment of creation; rather, it is a trade-off where speed of delivery is chosen over structural purity, with the understanding that the “borrowed time” will eventually need to be repaid.