How to use jiffy in a sentence

11 example sentences · noun

Jiffy means a very short, unspecified length of time. Example: “I’ll be back in a jiffy.”

Examples of jiffy by meaning

nounA very short, unspecified length of time.

I’ll be back in a jiffy.
Then, for a jiffy, I hung on and fought for breath.1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter VII, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y.; London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC, page 166

nounA unit of time defined by the frequency of its basic timer – historically, and by convention, 0.01 of a second, but...

The processed packets are forwarded to a single queue and are processed for the time of two jiffies.2015, Johanna Ullrich, Edgar R. Weippl, “Protection through Isolation: Virtues and Pitfalls”, in Ryan Ko, Kim-Kwang Raymond Choo, editors...

More sentences with jiffy

Call her if you have any problems and she'll get it fixed in a jiffy.From the entry in a jiffy
"Step lively, please," said a jiffy who was sitting on the adjoining post.1908, Percy Keese Fitzhugh, King Time: Or The Mystical Land of the Hours, a Fantasy, New York and Boston: H.M. Caldwell Company, page 197. From the entry step lively
"All they'll get in Corfu is a jiffy tummy.2016 April 11, Shirley Wells, Shirley Wells The Dylan Scott Mystery Series Collection 1: Presumed Dead\Dead Silent\Silent Witness\Dead…. From the entry jiffy tummy
We all suffered there, and got our dose of what is known as 'jiffy tummy', which is acute diarrhoea.2004, Benjamin John Grob-Fitzgibbon, The Irish Experience During the Second World War: An Oral History. From the entry jiffy tummy
It was blowing like fits; if anything had carried away I should have been on shore in a jiffy..1903, Erskine Childers, chapter VIII, in The Riddle of the Sands, Nelson Library edition, London: T Nelson & Sons, page 98. From the entry like fits
The binding still fits the swivel kit, which is ideal for a rental program where the bindings have to be switched in a jiffy to accommodate goofies and regulars.1993, “[Product Sampler ’93] New Boots”, in Transworld Snowboarding ’93 Buyer’s Guide, Oceanside, Calif.: Transworld Media, →OCLC, page…. From the entry goofy
“Now, little girl,” he says, with a fatherly smile (he'll soon be twenty-six), “tell me just what your difficulty is, and undoubtlessly we'll fix it up in a jiffy!”1920, American Magazine, volume 90, page 70. From the entry undoubtlessly
I played dumb 'cause I knew if I talked at all, being simple and guileless, you all would twist me up and have the whole thing in a jiffy.1904, Rex Ellingwood Beach, “The Mule Driver and the Garrulous Mute”, in Pardners. From the entry play dumb

Meaning of jiffy

noun A very short, unspecified length of time.
noun 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.
noun The length of an alternating current power cycle (1/60 or 1/50 of a second).

Full definition of jiffy

Questions about jiffy in a sentence

How do you use jiffy in a sentence?: Jiffy is used as a noun. For example: “I’ll be back in a jiffy.”
What is a short sentence with jiffy?: “I’ll be back in a jiffy.”
What does jiffy mean?: Jiffy means a very short, unspecified length of time.

Adapted from Wiktionary: jiffy (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Cite this page: “How to use jiffy in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/jiffy. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.