Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A short space of time; a moment. synonym: moment.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun A moment; an instant: as, I shall be with you in a jiffy.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun colloq. A moment; an instant.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun colloquial A very short, unspecified length of time.
- noun computing A unit of time defined by the frequency of its basic timer; historically, and by convention, 0.01 seconds, but some operating systems use other values.
- noun electronics The time between
alternating current power cycles (1/60 or 1/50 of a second) - noun physics The time taken for light to travel one centimetre in a vacuum (sometimes one foot, or sometimes the width of a
nucleon )
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun a very short time (as the time it takes the eye to blink or the heart to beat)
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
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Examples
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Pulling out into traffic with confidence that what you've got behind the throttle will get with the flow in a jiffy is a HUGE plus side to the Burgman as compared to the smaller scoots.
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As well as one of the few remaining human beings capable of using the word "jiffy" without corniness or ironic intent.
The Sinister Six Combo Castro, Adam Troy 2001
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Many hands make light work, and in what Bobolink called a "jiffy" there came plenty of wood of all kinds, from dead branches to small-sized logs.
The Banner Boy Scouts Afloat or, the Secret of Cedar Island George A. Warren
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Grandpa's slow tones and the "jiffy" was very funny.
The Pot of Gold And Other Stories Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman 1891
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He assured me he'd be back in a "jiffy" and turned to head back into the garage.
I will become greater. Paradox Puree 2010
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A "jiffy" is an actual unit of time for 1 / 100th of a second.
LearnHub Activities 2008
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I'll find her in a jiffy, which is very quick time, indeed, "he told the children.
Six Little Bunkers at Aunt Jo's Laura Lee Hope
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Does your recipe have jiffy corn bread mix in it? vegas710
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And then, all seriousness and practicality, she went on: But we'll have that righted in a jiffy.
CHAPTER XIII 2010
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If you want to, a quick light pull will jiffy her up and back and make a pretty mess all over your nice floor.
To Kill a Man 2010
oroboros commented on the word jiffy
In physics (particularly in quantum physics and often in chemistry), a jiffy is the time taken for light to travel the radius of an electron.
In computing, a jiffy is the duration of one tick of the system timer interrupt. It is not an absolute time interval unit, since its duration depends on the clock interrupt frequency of the particular hardware platform. Typically, this time is 0.01 seconds.
In electronics, a jiffy is the time between alternating current power cycles (1/60 or 1/50 of a second).
October 5, 2007