How to Use half a minute/second in a Sentence

half a minute/second

idiom
  • The group then went on to play around half a minute of the norteño track.
    — Jessica Roiz, Billboard, 21 May 2024
  • And of course, GPT-3 wrote its version of the essay in half a second.
    — New York Times, 12 Apr. 2022
  • Young saw one performer reel off the names of all 50 states in under half a minute.
    — Christopher Arnott, Hartford Courant, 25 July 2022
  • In just half a minute, more than three dozen gunshots echoed through the crowded streets.
    — Mark Berman and Todd C. Frankel, Anchorage Daily News, 30 Mar. 2023
  • With Utah up by one and about half a minute to go, Jared drove the lane, drew the defense, and kicked it back to Johnny.
    — Eric Walden, The Salt Lake Tribune, 19 July 2022
  • Taking off more than half a second from Sarah Sjostrom's record set at the 2016 Rio Olympics.
    — Paras J. Haji, Forbes, 12 Dec. 2024
  • All the helicopter had to do was take off, hover for about half a minute, and then land.
    — Mike Wehner, BGR, 21 Apr. 2021
  • The Wings went on a power play half a minute after that goal, and gave up a shorthanded chance to Roslovic.
    — Helene St. James, Detroit Free Press, 15 Jan. 2023
  • In The Bear, Keller expertly scrapes, tugs, and extracts the chicken's wishbone in about a half a minute.
    — Sam Stone, Bon Appétit, 28 June 2024
  • With this technique, small birds pass out within seconds and die in about half a minute.
    — Federico Rios, New York Times, 31 Aug. 2021
  • Neely is mostly still, but half a minute later tries to struggle out of the headlock.
    — Jake Offenhartz and Bobby Caina Calvan, Anchorage Daily News, 4 May 2023
  • Once the referee blows his whistle, Toney takes less than half a second to start his run-up.
    — Jay Harris, The Athletic, 9 July 2024
  • Douglass won the gold by surpassing Zhang Yufei by half a second, 24.94.
    — Paras J. Haji, Forbes, 20 Oct. 2024
  • And our system is designed to have latency of less than half a second.
    — IEEE Spectrum, 29 Mar. 2023
  • Yet, the sprawling warehouse in the film’s final shot had to command the screen for nearly half a minute and took the artist Michael Pangrazio three months to complete.
    — New York Times, 11 June 2021
  • The Bulls appeared to have that game clinched with half a second left in overtime after DeRozan was fouled on a 3-pointer and hit all three free throws.
    — Julia Poe, Chicago Tribune, 22 Dec. 2022
  • With about a half a minute to go in a rough-and-tumble second stanza, Traven, up 5-0 on points, rolled one of Weber’s shoulder blades to the mat.
    — Sean Keeler, The Denver Post, 16 Feb. 2025
  • And so really showing at giving this moment where the Elves and Orcs could have been friends and for half a second the ring could have brought that.
    — Mike Fleming Jr, Deadline, 3 Oct. 2024
  • Donut pinned Prichinich to the ground and snapped at him for about half a minute before a worker outside the cage prodded the bear and allowed the trainer to get back to his feet.
    — Peter Aitken, Fox News, 1 Sep. 2024
  • With the Whalers nursing a five-point lead and in possession of the ball with less than half a minute left on the clock, Wolgemuth didn’t want her scorching-hot night to stop.
    — Josh Reed, Anchorage Daily News, 25 Mar. 2022
  • Other codas may last only one-third of a second or half a second.
    — Carl Zimmer, New York Times, 7 May 2024
  • Ireland's Daniel Wiffen out-touched him by just over half a second.
    — Selene San Felice, Axios, 31 July 2024
  • The Internet nearly lost its mind when Sevigny was revealed to have a surprise cameo with less than half a minute left in the video.
    — Vincent Perella, IndieWire, 6 Sep. 2024
  • Last meet of the season, a result decided by half a second, Oblad sees the parallels.
    — Shane Hoffmann, oregonlive, 29 Oct. 2022
  • That’s almost half a second quicker than the latest 2024 Mustang Dark Horse.
    — Howard Walker, Robb Report, 19 Sep. 2023
  • He’s spent years trying to get here, qualifying for the 2020 race, which was cancelled, then missed the cutoff by half a second last year.
    — John Hilliard, BostonGlobe.com, 18 Apr. 2023
  • So when Jonny Brodzinski used Jon Merrill as a screen and whistled one through his legs, that half a second of losing sight of the puck led to a goal against.
    — Michael Russo, The Athletic, 14 Mar. 2025
  • Lewis is behind me, within half a second of beating me to victory.
    — Melinda Sheckells, Forbes, 25 Nov. 2024
  • Their relentless pressure didn’t allowed Woburn to pull Gerry until there was half a minute left to go before two critical face off wins helped run out the clock.
    — Matt Roy, Boston Herald, 9 Mar. 2025
  • Even with the knowledge of sprint qualifying and more time to jell with the car for the full grand prix qualifying session, Lawson again slumped to last place, again over half a second off making it through.
    — Luke Smith, New York Times, 27 Mar. 2025

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'half a minute/second.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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