[jif-ee] 
| a very short time; moment: to get dressed in a jiffy. |
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| jif·fy (jĭf'ē) n. pl. jif·fies Informal A short space of time; a moment. See Synonyms at moment. [Origin unknown.] |
jiffy
1. The duration of one tick of the computer's system clock. Often one AC cycle time (1/60 second in the US and Canada, 1/50 most other places), but more recently 1/100 sec has become common.
2. Confusingly, the term is sometimes also used for a 1-millisecond wall time interval. 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*.
[The Jargon File]
(2002-03-02)
