jiffy

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jiffy^¹

/ˈd͡ʒɪ.fi/ US, UK

Rhymes with -ɪfi

Where it comes from

Origin unknown; said to have been thieves’ cant for “lightning”. Also formerly written "giffy", to which a connection with gliff has been proposed. As a kind of envelope, a genericization of Jiffy bag.

noun jiffies · giffy

colloquial A very short, unspecified length of time. I’ll be back in a jiffy.
Similar: instant, jiff, mo, sec, tick, bat of an eye, bit, blink of an eye, crack, eyeblink, flash, glimpse
A unit of time defined by the frequency of its basic timer – historically, and by convention, 0.01 of a second, but some computer operating systems use other values. The FOR...NEXT loop for TIME increments by STEP 2 (every two jiffies) for two reasons: 1) the printing of 60 jiffies a second is too fast to read, and 2) the printing of each jiffy takes longer than its incrementations; this would delay the loop, so the printing of TIME$ is slower than it should be.
The length of an alternating current power cycle (1/60 or 1/50 of a second).
The time taken for light to travel a specified distance in a vacuum, usually one centimetre (approximately 33.3564 picoseconds), but sometimes one foot or the width of a nucleon.
UK, abbreviation, ellipsis Ellipsis of jiffy bag, a padded envelope.
Similar: bubble envelope, bubble mailer, Jiffy bag, padded envelope, padded mailer

Jiffy^²

noun Jiffies

alternative Alternative form of Jiffy bag

Translations

Every language

noun very short, unspecified length of time

Español	en un pispás, periquete, santiamén, tris
हिन्दी	पल pal
Português	instante, momento, num piscar de olhos
Français	instant, moment, seconde
Deutsch	Moment, Augenblick
Italiano	attimo, baleno
Русский	миг mig, один момент, минуту minutu, мгновение mgnovenije, мгновение ока mgnovenije oka
العربية	وَهْلة wahla, لَحْظة laḥẓa

noun (computing) Unit of time defined by the frequency of its basic timer

Русский	систе́мный тик sistémnyj tik

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MLA

"jiffy." Wiktionary, via Micwyn, micwyn.com/word/jiffy. Accessed 6 Nov. 2026.

APA

jiffy. (n.d.). In Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Retrieved November 6, 2026, from https://micwyn.com/word/jiffy

Chicago

"jiffy." Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Accessed November 6, 2026. https://micwyn.com/word/jiffy.

BibTeX

@misc{jiffy_2026,
  title = {jiffy},
  howpublished = {Wiktionary, via Micwyn},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://micwyn.com/word/jiffy},
  urldate = {2026-11-06}
}