From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:
Jiffy \Jif"fy\, n. [Perh. corrupt. fr. gliff.] [Written also
{giffy}.]
A moment; an instant; as, I will be ready in a jiffy.
[Colloq.] --J. & H. Smith.
[1913 Webster]
From WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006) [wn]:
jiffy
n 1: a very short time (as the time it takes the eye to blink or
the heart to beat); "if I had the chance I'd do it in a
flash" [syn: {blink of an eye}, {flash}, {heartbeat},
{instant}, {jiffy}, {split second}, {trice}, {twinkling},
{wink}, {New York minute}]
From The Jargon File (version 4.4.7, 29 Dec 2003) [jargon]:
jiffy
n.
1. The duration of one tick of the system clock on your computer (see
{tick}). Often one AC cycle time (1/60 second in the U.S. and Canada, 1/50
most other places), but more recently 1/100 sec has become common. ?The
swapper runs every 6 jiffies? means that the virtual memory management
routine is executed once for every 6 ticks of the clock, or about ten times
a second.
2. Confusingly, the term is sometimes also used for a 1-millisecond {wall
time} interval.
3. Even more confusingly, physicists semi-jokingly use ?jiffy? to mean the
time required for light to travel one foot in a vacuum, which turns out to
be close to one nanosecond. Other physicists use the term for the
quantum-nechanical lower bound on meaningful time lengths,
4. Indeterminate time from a few seconds to forever. ?I'll do it in a
jiffy? means certainly not now and possibly never. This is a bit contrary
to the more widespread use of the word. Oppose {nano}. See also {Real Soon
Now}.
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