Comment by hombre_fatal

Yeah, I don't get how this thread is at the top.

You debounce a physical switch because it makes contact multiple times before settling in the contacted position, e.g. you might wait until it's settled before acting, or you act upon the first signal and ignore the ones that quickly follow.

And that closely resembles the goal and even implementation of UI debouncing.

It also makes sense in a search box because there you have the distinction between intermediate vs. settled state. Do you act on what might be intermediate states, or do you try to assume settled state?

Just because it might have a more varied or more abstract meaning in another industry doesn't mean it's a bad analogy, even though Javascript is involved, sheesh.