second
- noun
- /ˈsɛkənd/
- Informal
- close your eyes for a couple of seconds, Eliza.
- a few seconds
- split second
- fraction of a second
So let's just take a second and close our eyes.
- So let's just take a second and close our eyes.
- How did you not think, oh, wait a second, this feels more right?
- To say you don't fool me for a second, you're opaque.
- And he said, wait a second, that's what I do.
- It is a less than a second frame that changes.
- That's amazing because the second he said, why did you say that?
- I'm going to just start for a second with why it's hard.
- And I thought maybe for a second, maybe she's dead.
Examples
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OK, now you might say wait a second, why?
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Just take that one second to turn your head and look.
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And that took what, a second less than a second?
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Whoa, whoa, wait a second... what are we talking about here?
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Note that 30 seconds is a very short amount of time to get a message across.
Academic text (2008) -
So let's just take a second and close our eyes.
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That will last about two seconds.
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For about 15 seconds there, we were actually playing tennis, and we understood each other completely.
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I'm going to go to the bookstore for a second
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Just take that one second to turn your head and look.
Synonyms
A small piece or amount of something, for example food
A very short time or a particular point in time
A very short moment that passes quickly
A very short moment when something happens
A very short time, like a moment, used in informal speech
A very short time like a moment
A very short time, like a few moments
Antonyms
Idioms
- Informal
A person who has a less important role and helps someone more important
Compounds
A child of your parent's first cousin who shares your great-grandparents but not your grandparents
A player who stands near second base and catches or throws the ball to get runners out
A junior officer with the lowest rank in the Army, Air Force, or Marine Corps
- Specialized
Words that refer to the person or people you speak to, for example 'you'
A meeting of Catholic Church leaders from 1962 to 1965 that changed worship and encouraged talks with other Christian churches
A measure of speed that shows how many kilometers something moves in one second
- Specialized
Energy naturally spreads from hot places to cold ones, increasing disorder
A woman who cares for someone like a mother, often with or instead of their own mother
- Archaic
A period in old age when mental decline makes a person behave like a young child
- Specialized
An extra second added to clocks so they match how fast the Earth turns
- Specialized
A unit that shows how many small pieces of information called bits are sent every second
- Informal
A belief that food dropped on the floor for less than two seconds is still safe to eat
- Specialized
A measure of how many billion math calculations a computer does each second
- Specialized
A rule that you can extend any straight line without end in both directions
- Archaic
A unit equal to one thousand cycles per second, now called kilohertz
- Specialized
The distance light travels in one second in empty space, about 300,000 kilometers
- Archaic
A unit equal to one million cycles per second for measuring radio frequencies
- Specialized
A measure of how fast a computer does one million math calculations each second
- Specialized
A unit for measuring how fast a computer processor runs, equal to one million instructions per second
- Specialized
A rule that a force changes an object's motion more when the force is bigger or the object is lighter
A person who belongs to a Christian group that believes Christ will return soon
How Long
Surface Forms
Etymology
Second as 'a very short time' comes from the time unit second, used here as a quick, informal way to say 'a moment', so saying 'I'll be there in a second' means 'in a short while'.