Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. Informal A short space of time; a moment. See Synonyms at moment.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A moment; an instant: as, I shall be with you in a jiffy.
Wiktionary
- n. colloquial A very short, unspecified length of time.
- n. 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.
- n. electronics The time between alternating current power cycles (1/60 or 1/50 of a second)
- n. physics The time taken for light to travel one centimetre in a vacuum (sometimes one foot, or sometimes the width of a nucleon)
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. colloq. A moment; an instant.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a very short time (as the time it takes the eye to blink or the heart to beat)
Etymologies
- Origin unknown. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“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.”
“As well as one of the few remaining human beings capable of using the word "jiffy" without corniness or ironic intent.”
“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.”
“Grandpa's slow tones and the "jiffy" was very funny.”
“He assured me he'd be back in a "jiffy" and turned to head back into the garage.”
“A "jiffy" is an actual unit of time for 1 / 100th of a second.”
“I'll find her in a jiffy, which is very quick time, indeed, "he told the children.”
“Does your recipe have jiffy corn bread mix in it? vegas710”
“And then, all seriousness and practicality, she went on: But we'll have that righted in a jiffy.”
“If you want to, a quick light pull will jiffy her up and back and make a pretty mess all over your nice floor.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘jiffy’.
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Imprecise Units of Measurement
A list of terms for units of measurement that are less than exact, such as dessert-spoonful.
two shakes, dessert-spoonful, a pinch, a bit, some, smidge, smidgin, dollop, drop, fleck, smack, sprinkling and 187 more...
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pretty dots all in a row
polka dotted words
hijack, jinx, jingle, beijing, jive, jilted, jittery, jill, hijab, haji, hajj, hijinks and 149 more...
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phrontistery - j
from phrontistery.info
jabberwock, jabot, jacent, jacinthe, jack, jackanapes, jack-block, jack-cross-tree, jackstaff, jackstay, jackyard, jacobin and 137 more...
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old timey talk
Words or Sayings from the 1920's or whatever that no one really uses anymore (at least in that context).
scram, bearcat, heavens to betsy, dick, double-cross, ducky, gams, goofy, hooch, jalopy, john, joe and 174 more...
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Blippets
Time~sphere phenomena, manipulations, fluctuations, processes, measurements, and oddities. For use in building my machine.
microfortnight, transilient, instant, flash, breath, blink, beat, momentary, nimesha, truti, second, centisecond and 120 more...
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Y
What a -Y does to an otherwise common, dull word
zany, waxy, wavy, arty, chewy, bony, boxy, cozy, nosy, foxy, wiry, junky and 321 more...
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Origin unknown
bamboozle, ballyhoo, banter, bludgeon, chad, cocktail, culvert, curmugeon, dildo, dude, dweeb, dyke and 51 more...
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Scrabble words which start with the l...
juvenile, juvenal, jutty, jute, jut, justness, justly, justle, justify, justice, juster, just and 534 more...
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minneapolitan's Words
hissyfit, fussbudget, aghast, lament, trichinellosis, tranche, decadent, aspersion, pejorative, aniline, galoshes, accede and 200 more...
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RocknRolla (2008)
Words from 2008 'RocknRolla' film.
drip, consent, foothold, bricks and mortar, mortar, councillor, let down, wand, clean out, leg-up, hasty, erect and 115 more...
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Quaintnesses
For those who wish no words were ever forgotten
opprobrium, tedium, encomium, odium, ire, enmity, beguile, wile, brazen, popinjay, squit, hoity-toity and 1161 more...
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xstala's Words
oneiric, inchoate, clandestine, tangerine, brusque, clout, benedictine, argonaut, juniper, tulle, zealot, vesper and 175 more...
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cat 2012
mala fide, trafficking, impoverished, atrocity, divulge, personify, audacity, resurrect, dubious, bloated, sovereign, rein and 123 more...
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The Measure of Man
Unusual, arcane, or obscure units of measure
cable, cabot, bushel, cade, caliper, callipic cycle, metonic cycle, cunit, air watt, ale gallon, allergy unit, amber and 228 more...
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2008 Wordlist
Hopefully, I'll be using this site for more than one year. It will be fun then to look back and see what new words I found worthy of notice in any given year.
All words spotted in 2008...longanimity, permalancer, breeder, biodegradable, handicapable, gender-neutral, translator, interpreter, translation, interpreting, kleptocracy, fanfiction and 1598 more...
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Informal
canary, wishy-washy, brummie, veep, kludge, beaut, moniker, humongous, tushie, ponce, Chinaman, cocky and 44 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for jiffy.
oroboros 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).
Oct 4, 2007