Once you know what all those fancy terms mean (as explained below), you'll understand what watch 'complications' mean and what they do. It is, after all, just a matter of time...
Ready
to splurge on your first expensive watch but intimidated by the barrel of
complications thrown in your face? If you don’t know a Tonneau from a
Tourbillon, have no fear; this jargon-buster, where I explain 50 terms that are
commonly used in the world of high-end watches, will help you go hammer and
gongs against the next snooty watch salesman you come across!
Analog
A watch that displays the time via physical hour and minute hands, which are powered by an automatic or quartz movement. So, unless your watch’s primary display is a digital LCD, it’s an analog watch.
Automatic
A mechanical watch that does not require its crown to be wound up manually. Instead, the movement of the wearer’s wrist moves a counterweight (also referred to as a rotor), which then powers the mainspring, which in turn moves the gears that power the watch’s hands. Unlike quartz watches, there’s no battery here.
Aviator Watch
An aviator watch, also called a pilot watch, was originally designed for aviators and featured a large, easy-to-read black dial, triangle marker at 12 o’clock and a ratcheted, extra-large crown. While the Cartier Santos, one of the earliest aviator watches, was square shaped, post-WW1 military specs have demanded that aviator watches must only be round.
Balance Wheel
This is a weighted wheel that oscillates at a constant rate, which is usually one oscillation per fraction of a second, moving the watch’s gears and allowing the hands to move around the dial.
Balance Spring
A delicate spring made of metal or silicon that’s attached to the balance wheel, regulating the rate at which the balance wheel oscillates. The balance spring is also referred to as a hairspring.
Barrel
The cylindrical, enclosed apparatus with geared teeth, which contains the mainspring and which thus houses the watch’s power reserve.
Bezel
A metal or ceramic ring that surrounds the watch crystal. Rotating bezels, usually found on dive watches, contain a scale for time or other measurements. There are also stationary bezels that do not have a scale and are purely decorative.
Bridge
A plate or bar that is mounted to the mainplate (which is the foundation of a watch’s movement, making up the majority of each calibre) via screws, forming a frame that houses the inner workings of a mechanical watch.
Calibre
A synonym for a watch’s movement, usually distinguished with a name or a number, depending on the watch manufacturer.
Case
The housing for the watch’s movement and usually the primary design focus for most watches. The case can be made of various metals and can offer protection against water, dust and shocks. The case back (the reverse side of a watch) is removable, allowing access to the watch’s mechanical bits. An exhibition case back, often seen on high-end watches, is one that’s made of toughened glass and allows the watch’s inner mechanical bits to be viewed from the outside.
Chronograph
A type of watch which, in addition to showing time, also has an additional stopwatch function that can be started, stopped and reset via pushers mounted at the side of the case.
Chronometer
A high-precision watch with a movement that has been independently tested by the official Swiss Chronometer Testing Institute (COSC), in Switzerland. The performance of each movement is tested at different temperatures, positions, and humidity levels, for up to 15 consecutive days. Mechanical movements must be accurate to -4/+6 seconds per day, while quartz movements must be accurate to +/-0.07 seconds per day, in order to get the chronometer certificate.
COSC
Contrôle Officiel Suisse de Chronomètre (COSC) is the official Swiss chronometer testing institute, which is responsible for certifying the accuracy and precision of wristwatches in Switzerland.
Complication
An additional function of a watch, which goes beyond telling the time. Complications can include chronograph and calendar, while ‘grand complications’ (mechanically complex and very expensive to produce) include moonphase indicator, perpetual calendar, minute repeater and tourbillion, among others.
Crown
A small knob on the side of the case, which can be moved up and down, and rotated in either direction, to adjust the date and time. On non-automatic watches that require manual winding, the crown is also used to wind up the watch’s mainspring to keep it running.
Cathedral Gong
A minute repeater watch strikes hours, quarters and minutes on gongs, which are usually made of hardened steel. Some Patek Philippe watches have what are called cathedral gongs, which are about 50% longer than conventional gongs and have a deeper, richer sound.
Deployant Clasp
A type of watch strap buckle that closes by folding in on itself and then snapping shut. Once this expandable clasp opens out, it’s easy to wear the watch. Also, since it eliminates the possibility of the watch falling off while being worn or being taken off, this clasp is safer than the conventional buckle.
Analog
A watch that displays the time via physical hour and minute hands, which are powered by an automatic or quartz movement. So, unless your watch’s primary display is a digital LCD, it’s an analog watch.
Automatic
A mechanical watch that does not require its crown to be wound up manually. Instead, the movement of the wearer’s wrist moves a counterweight (also referred to as a rotor), which then powers the mainspring, which in turn moves the gears that power the watch’s hands. Unlike quartz watches, there’s no battery here.
Aviator Watch
An aviator watch, also called a pilot watch, was originally designed for aviators and featured a large, easy-to-read black dial, triangle marker at 12 o’clock and a ratcheted, extra-large crown. While the Cartier Santos, one of the earliest aviator watches, was square shaped, post-WW1 military specs have demanded that aviator watches must only be round.
Balance Wheel
This is a weighted wheel that oscillates at a constant rate, which is usually one oscillation per fraction of a second, moving the watch’s gears and allowing the hands to move around the dial.
Balance Spring
A delicate spring made of metal or silicon that’s attached to the balance wheel, regulating the rate at which the balance wheel oscillates. The balance spring is also referred to as a hairspring.
Barrel
The cylindrical, enclosed apparatus with geared teeth, which contains the mainspring and which thus houses the watch’s power reserve.
Bezel
A metal or ceramic ring that surrounds the watch crystal. Rotating bezels, usually found on dive watches, contain a scale for time or other measurements. There are also stationary bezels that do not have a scale and are purely decorative.
Bridge
A plate or bar that is mounted to the mainplate (which is the foundation of a watch’s movement, making up the majority of each calibre) via screws, forming a frame that houses the inner workings of a mechanical watch.
Calibre
A synonym for a watch’s movement, usually distinguished with a name or a number, depending on the watch manufacturer.
Case
The housing for the watch’s movement and usually the primary design focus for most watches. The case can be made of various metals and can offer protection against water, dust and shocks. The case back (the reverse side of a watch) is removable, allowing access to the watch’s mechanical bits. An exhibition case back, often seen on high-end watches, is one that’s made of toughened glass and allows the watch’s inner mechanical bits to be viewed from the outside.
Chronograph
A type of watch which, in addition to showing time, also has an additional stopwatch function that can be started, stopped and reset via pushers mounted at the side of the case.
Chronometer
A high-precision watch with a movement that has been independently tested by the official Swiss Chronometer Testing Institute (COSC), in Switzerland. The performance of each movement is tested at different temperatures, positions, and humidity levels, for up to 15 consecutive days. Mechanical movements must be accurate to -4/+6 seconds per day, while quartz movements must be accurate to +/-0.07 seconds per day, in order to get the chronometer certificate.
COSC
Contrôle Officiel Suisse de Chronomètre (COSC) is the official Swiss chronometer testing institute, which is responsible for certifying the accuracy and precision of wristwatches in Switzerland.
Complication
An additional function of a watch, which goes beyond telling the time. Complications can include chronograph and calendar, while ‘grand complications’ (mechanically complex and very expensive to produce) include moonphase indicator, perpetual calendar, minute repeater and tourbillion, among others.
Crown
A small knob on the side of the case, which can be moved up and down, and rotated in either direction, to adjust the date and time. On non-automatic watches that require manual winding, the crown is also used to wind up the watch’s mainspring to keep it running.
Cathedral Gong
A minute repeater watch strikes hours, quarters and minutes on gongs, which are usually made of hardened steel. Some Patek Philippe watches have what are called cathedral gongs, which are about 50% longer than conventional gongs and have a deeper, richer sound.
Deployant Clasp
A type of watch strap buckle that closes by folding in on itself and then snapping shut. Once this expandable clasp opens out, it’s easy to wear the watch. Also, since it eliminates the possibility of the watch falling off while being worn or being taken off, this clasp is safer than the conventional buckle.
Dive
Watch
Dive watches (also referred to as diver’s watches) are water-resistant for at least 200m or more and feature a unidirectional rotating bezel and some form of illumination. The unidirectional bezel allows the wearer to set '0' at the time which they enter the water, hence allowing them to keep track of the duration of time spent under water. The bezel only rotates in one direction, preventing unintended movement in the other direction, which could cause misreading of the time spent under water – a critical safety feature.
Escapement
In mechanical watches, the escapement provides the impulses to maintain the oscillations of the balance wheel, which governs the rate at which the hands of the watch move. The escapement is driven by force from a coiled spring, transmitted through the timepiece's gear train. The ticking sound that emanates from a watch is the sound of the escapement locking and releasing the watch’s gear train (thus moving it from locked to drive state and back), which also accounts for most of the energy usage in a mechanical watch.
Equation of Time
An Equation Of Time (EOT) complication indicates the difference between true solar time and mean solar time. As the earth orbits around the sun in an elliptical orbit, and since the axis itself is tilted, there are only four days in a year when the day is exactly 24 hours long. All other days are slightly longer or shorter and a watch with the EOT complication will show the difference between the ‘mean’ time and the ‘true’ time.
Flyback Chronograph
A type of chronograph that can restart the instant it is brought back to zero, without the need to stop and reset – useful for anyone who needs to measure multiple legs of a timed activity that’s being repeated in quick succession.
Guilloche
An engraved, finely detailed ornamental pattern used on watch dials, mechanically etched on to the underlying material. The Guilloche technique is named after French engineer Guillot, who invented a machine that could etch fine patterns and designs on metallic surfaces.
Hand-wound
A mechanical watch that requires its mainspring to be wound up manually, via the crown. Unlike automatic watches, which are powered by the movement of the wearer’s wrist, hand-wound watches require manual winding at certain intervals for uninterrupted operation.
Horology
The art and science of measuring time, including the art of designing and manufacturing watches.
Helium Escape Valve
This is an important part of diving watches, which are worn by professional deep sea divers. During deep sea dives, helium can get inside the watch and if not allowed to escape when the diver ascends, can cause damage due to pressure building up inside the watch. The one-way helium escape valve prevents such damage by doing what its name suggests.
Hybrid Smartwatch
A fusion of the regular mechanical watch with a digital smartwatch, the hybrid smartwatch is usually quartz-powered, looks like a regular analog watch, doesn’t have a touchscreen but does have a wide range of ‘smart’ functions. These watches often feature things like activity tracking, messaging and swappable watch faces. They are also made with more premium materials as compared to most digital smartwatches, so have a higher luxury quotient than their digital-only cousins.
Indices
The raised markings on the dial of a watch, which are used to represent the hours. These could be numbers or bars (also referred to as batons) or circular dots, but rather than simply being printed on the dial, these are applied on or attached to the dial via pegs or with certain kinds of glue. Indices (also called applique Indices) are sometimes made luminous or they can be made of precious metals, depending on the watchmaker.
Jewels
Synthetic rubies or sapphires, used as bearings in a watch movement. As opposed to metals with oils, these ‘jewels’ reduce friction between moving parts, do not seize up, last long and are low on maintenance. The coefficient of friction of sapphire on steel is about 0.15, as compared to around 0.58 for steel on steel, so the benefits are obvious.
Luminescence
Luminescence (also referred to as ‘lume’) is the glow that comes from the numbers/indices and hands on a watch’s dial, which have been coated with a photoluminescent material. Early watches used radioactive radium to make indices and hands glow, but the use of radium was banned in the late-1960s. Modern watches use safer, non-radioactive substances to get that glow.
Mainspring
Housed inside a barrel, the mainspring powers a mechanical watch’s movement. The spring is tightened by periodic manual winding or, on automatic watches, by the movement of the watch wearer’s wrist. The wound-up mainspring stores energy and as it gradually unwinds, it powers the movement of the watch’s hands.
Minute Repeater
A high-end complication that’s usually only found on expensive watches, the repeater is activated by a slide or button on the case edge and, once activated, chimes at the intervals (hours, half hours, quarter hours or minutes) selected by the user.
Movement
Also referred to as the watch’s calibre, it’s the working mechanism that powers the watch. The movement can either be mechanical, which can be automatic or hand-wound, or quartz, which is battery powered. Ironically, while the quartz movement is significantly cheaper to produce, it’s also much more accurate.
Mystery Watch
Invented by watchmaker Vincent Calabrese and produced by Swiss watchmaker Jean Marcel, the automatic ‘mystery watch’ dispenses with hands. Instead, it uses an hour window that moves clockwise around a minute scale (for indicating the hour and the minute), while a small, arrow-shaped indicator moves to indicate the seconds. These days, some watchmakers have created their own iterations of this movement, all of which do away with the hour and minute hands and use rotating dials to show the time.
Power Reserve
Refers to the length of time for which a mechanical watch can keep running, after being fully wound up. The power reserve can range from around 40 hours for relatively inexpensive mechanical watches, to a couple of days for high-end timepieces. Some watches also feature a power reserve gauge on the dial, which show the state of power remaining.
Moon Phase
The purpose of this complication is to indicate the amount of light (moonlight, that is) available at night. The moon phase movement shows the phases of the moon over a 29.5 day period, as the orbital positions of the Moon around the Earth, and of the Earth around the Sun shift over time.
Perpetual Calendar
Referred to as a grand complication, perpetual calendar incorporates a mechanism that correctly displays the date on a watch over multiple months and years. While standard watch calendars operate on a 31-day cycle, requiring manual adjustment every other month in order to show the correct date, a perpetual calendar can automatically keep track of different lengths of the months, also taking into account leap years. It’s an expensive, difficult to produce complication that’s only found on high-end mechanical watches.
Quartz
Most affordable mainstream watches these days use a battery-powered quartz movement, which is lighter, simpler, cheaper to produce and more accurate as compared to mechanical movements. The battery sends an electric signal, via a microchip circuit, to a small synthetic quartz crystal, which then vibrates at a precise rate. These vibrations regulate a stepper motor, which powers the movement of the watch’s hands.
Rattrapante Chronograph
Also referred to as a double chronograph or split-seconds chronograph, this type of watch has an additional seconds hand and pusher in addition to the standard chronograph function. The additional seconds hand moves in sync with the standard seconds hand, but stops when its corresponding pusher is depressed. This allows the wearer to record two times at once.
Railroad Watches
Railroad chronometers or simply railroad watches were once used by professionals who worked with various railroad companies that existed around the world, for whom absolute precision and accuracy were essential. Railroad watches must include 19 jewels or more, a double-roller escapement, steel escape wheel, and anti-magnetic protection. These watches must also be adjusted for severe temperature variance, have bold and clearly legible Arabic numerals on the dial, and have a maximum variation of 30 seconds in one week.
Retrogade
This is a display in which an indicator hand (for time, day/date, power reserve or any other function) moves through an arc rather than in a fully circular movement. In such a display, when the hand reaches the end of an arc, it immediately snaps back to its starting position automatically.
Silicon
Instead of traditional metal alloys, some watchmakers now use Silicon (a brittle crystalline solid that’s a ‘tetravalent metalloid’ according to Wikipedia) for making balance springs and escapements. Unlike metal, Silicon does not react to changes in magnetism and temperature, does not require lubrication and usually provides more reliable and more accurate timekeeping.
Skeleton
A skeleton watch features a transparent or partially cut-out dial, which lets the wearer see the inner mechanical bits of the watch. Usually only found on high-end mechanical watches.
Sapphire Crystal
It’s the clear, protective cover mounted on the case, covering the watch face. This cover, while often made with acrylic or toughened glass on cheaper watches, is made of synthetic sapphire crystal on higher-end watches. Synthetic sapphire is expensive to produce but is also more scratch-resistant than either glass or acrylic materials.
Screw-down Crown
This is a type of crown which, once returned to its normal resting position (after being used to adjust the time or day/date etc.), can be screwed down further into the case. This makes for a better air-tight seal and improved dust and water resistance.
Tachymeter
A feature found on some analog chronographs, the tachymeter (engraved on the watch’s bezel) measures speed over a predefined distance. The wearer starts the chronograph at the starting point of a known distance and stops it at the finishing point. At this point, the seconds hand will indicate the speed on the watch’s tachymeter scale.
Tank Watch
The term refers to a line of watches made by Cartier; a rectangular watch that has bars along the sides of its face. The Cartier tank watch, created by Louis Cartier in 1917, was inspired by the Renault FT-17 battle tank used in the first world war. Today there are many imitators but the ‘real’ tank watch can only be one made by Cartier.
Tonneau
The term refers to the shape of a watch’s case, which has to be rectangle with gently curving sides. Cartier designed the first tonneau watch back in 1906, though the shape has since then been used by many other watchmakers.
Tourbillon
This is a type of escapement that’s housed in a rotating cage, the use of which is meant to counter the effects of gravity on the watch’s seconds hand. Complicated and massively expensive to produce, the tourbillion is only found on very high-end watches and while it does improve accuracy, it’s also used to showcase a luxury watchmaker’s sheer technical expertise.
Winder
An electrically operated box or case that gently rotates in multiple directions. An automatic watch that’s not worn regularly can be kept in a winder to keep it moving, which keeps its mainspring wound up, thus ensuring that the watch keeps running.
World Timer
World timer watches have a dial that tells the time in 24 different time zones, represented by 24 cities around the world. The names of these 24 cities are printed on the dial and going by the scale placed next to these cities, you can see the exact time in any of the 24 cities by looking at the position of the hour hand on the watch.
Dive watches (also referred to as diver’s watches) are water-resistant for at least 200m or more and feature a unidirectional rotating bezel and some form of illumination. The unidirectional bezel allows the wearer to set '0' at the time which they enter the water, hence allowing them to keep track of the duration of time spent under water. The bezel only rotates in one direction, preventing unintended movement in the other direction, which could cause misreading of the time spent under water – a critical safety feature.
Escapement
In mechanical watches, the escapement provides the impulses to maintain the oscillations of the balance wheel, which governs the rate at which the hands of the watch move. The escapement is driven by force from a coiled spring, transmitted through the timepiece's gear train. The ticking sound that emanates from a watch is the sound of the escapement locking and releasing the watch’s gear train (thus moving it from locked to drive state and back), which also accounts for most of the energy usage in a mechanical watch.
Equation of Time
An Equation Of Time (EOT) complication indicates the difference between true solar time and mean solar time. As the earth orbits around the sun in an elliptical orbit, and since the axis itself is tilted, there are only four days in a year when the day is exactly 24 hours long. All other days are slightly longer or shorter and a watch with the EOT complication will show the difference between the ‘mean’ time and the ‘true’ time.
Flyback Chronograph
A type of chronograph that can restart the instant it is brought back to zero, without the need to stop and reset – useful for anyone who needs to measure multiple legs of a timed activity that’s being repeated in quick succession.
Guilloche
An engraved, finely detailed ornamental pattern used on watch dials, mechanically etched on to the underlying material. The Guilloche technique is named after French engineer Guillot, who invented a machine that could etch fine patterns and designs on metallic surfaces.
Hand-wound
A mechanical watch that requires its mainspring to be wound up manually, via the crown. Unlike automatic watches, which are powered by the movement of the wearer’s wrist, hand-wound watches require manual winding at certain intervals for uninterrupted operation.
Horology
The art and science of measuring time, including the art of designing and manufacturing watches.
Helium Escape Valve
This is an important part of diving watches, which are worn by professional deep sea divers. During deep sea dives, helium can get inside the watch and if not allowed to escape when the diver ascends, can cause damage due to pressure building up inside the watch. The one-way helium escape valve prevents such damage by doing what its name suggests.
Hybrid Smartwatch
A fusion of the regular mechanical watch with a digital smartwatch, the hybrid smartwatch is usually quartz-powered, looks like a regular analog watch, doesn’t have a touchscreen but does have a wide range of ‘smart’ functions. These watches often feature things like activity tracking, messaging and swappable watch faces. They are also made with more premium materials as compared to most digital smartwatches, so have a higher luxury quotient than their digital-only cousins.
Indices
The raised markings on the dial of a watch, which are used to represent the hours. These could be numbers or bars (also referred to as batons) or circular dots, but rather than simply being printed on the dial, these are applied on or attached to the dial via pegs or with certain kinds of glue. Indices (also called applique Indices) are sometimes made luminous or they can be made of precious metals, depending on the watchmaker.
Jewels
Synthetic rubies or sapphires, used as bearings in a watch movement. As opposed to metals with oils, these ‘jewels’ reduce friction between moving parts, do not seize up, last long and are low on maintenance. The coefficient of friction of sapphire on steel is about 0.15, as compared to around 0.58 for steel on steel, so the benefits are obvious.
Luminescence
Luminescence (also referred to as ‘lume’) is the glow that comes from the numbers/indices and hands on a watch’s dial, which have been coated with a photoluminescent material. Early watches used radioactive radium to make indices and hands glow, but the use of radium was banned in the late-1960s. Modern watches use safer, non-radioactive substances to get that glow.
Mainspring
Housed inside a barrel, the mainspring powers a mechanical watch’s movement. The spring is tightened by periodic manual winding or, on automatic watches, by the movement of the watch wearer’s wrist. The wound-up mainspring stores energy and as it gradually unwinds, it powers the movement of the watch’s hands.
Minute Repeater
A high-end complication that’s usually only found on expensive watches, the repeater is activated by a slide or button on the case edge and, once activated, chimes at the intervals (hours, half hours, quarter hours or minutes) selected by the user.
Movement
Also referred to as the watch’s calibre, it’s the working mechanism that powers the watch. The movement can either be mechanical, which can be automatic or hand-wound, or quartz, which is battery powered. Ironically, while the quartz movement is significantly cheaper to produce, it’s also much more accurate.
Mystery Watch
Invented by watchmaker Vincent Calabrese and produced by Swiss watchmaker Jean Marcel, the automatic ‘mystery watch’ dispenses with hands. Instead, it uses an hour window that moves clockwise around a minute scale (for indicating the hour and the minute), while a small, arrow-shaped indicator moves to indicate the seconds. These days, some watchmakers have created their own iterations of this movement, all of which do away with the hour and minute hands and use rotating dials to show the time.
Power Reserve
Refers to the length of time for which a mechanical watch can keep running, after being fully wound up. The power reserve can range from around 40 hours for relatively inexpensive mechanical watches, to a couple of days for high-end timepieces. Some watches also feature a power reserve gauge on the dial, which show the state of power remaining.
Moon Phase
The purpose of this complication is to indicate the amount of light (moonlight, that is) available at night. The moon phase movement shows the phases of the moon over a 29.5 day period, as the orbital positions of the Moon around the Earth, and of the Earth around the Sun shift over time.
Perpetual Calendar
Referred to as a grand complication, perpetual calendar incorporates a mechanism that correctly displays the date on a watch over multiple months and years. While standard watch calendars operate on a 31-day cycle, requiring manual adjustment every other month in order to show the correct date, a perpetual calendar can automatically keep track of different lengths of the months, also taking into account leap years. It’s an expensive, difficult to produce complication that’s only found on high-end mechanical watches.
Quartz
Most affordable mainstream watches these days use a battery-powered quartz movement, which is lighter, simpler, cheaper to produce and more accurate as compared to mechanical movements. The battery sends an electric signal, via a microchip circuit, to a small synthetic quartz crystal, which then vibrates at a precise rate. These vibrations regulate a stepper motor, which powers the movement of the watch’s hands.
Rattrapante Chronograph
Also referred to as a double chronograph or split-seconds chronograph, this type of watch has an additional seconds hand and pusher in addition to the standard chronograph function. The additional seconds hand moves in sync with the standard seconds hand, but stops when its corresponding pusher is depressed. This allows the wearer to record two times at once.
Railroad Watches
Railroad chronometers or simply railroad watches were once used by professionals who worked with various railroad companies that existed around the world, for whom absolute precision and accuracy were essential. Railroad watches must include 19 jewels or more, a double-roller escapement, steel escape wheel, and anti-magnetic protection. These watches must also be adjusted for severe temperature variance, have bold and clearly legible Arabic numerals on the dial, and have a maximum variation of 30 seconds in one week.
Retrogade
This is a display in which an indicator hand (for time, day/date, power reserve or any other function) moves through an arc rather than in a fully circular movement. In such a display, when the hand reaches the end of an arc, it immediately snaps back to its starting position automatically.
Silicon
Instead of traditional metal alloys, some watchmakers now use Silicon (a brittle crystalline solid that’s a ‘tetravalent metalloid’ according to Wikipedia) for making balance springs and escapements. Unlike metal, Silicon does not react to changes in magnetism and temperature, does not require lubrication and usually provides more reliable and more accurate timekeeping.
Skeleton
A skeleton watch features a transparent or partially cut-out dial, which lets the wearer see the inner mechanical bits of the watch. Usually only found on high-end mechanical watches.
Sapphire Crystal
It’s the clear, protective cover mounted on the case, covering the watch face. This cover, while often made with acrylic or toughened glass on cheaper watches, is made of synthetic sapphire crystal on higher-end watches. Synthetic sapphire is expensive to produce but is also more scratch-resistant than either glass or acrylic materials.
Screw-down Crown
This is a type of crown which, once returned to its normal resting position (after being used to adjust the time or day/date etc.), can be screwed down further into the case. This makes for a better air-tight seal and improved dust and water resistance.
Tachymeter
A feature found on some analog chronographs, the tachymeter (engraved on the watch’s bezel) measures speed over a predefined distance. The wearer starts the chronograph at the starting point of a known distance and stops it at the finishing point. At this point, the seconds hand will indicate the speed on the watch’s tachymeter scale.
Tank Watch
The term refers to a line of watches made by Cartier; a rectangular watch that has bars along the sides of its face. The Cartier tank watch, created by Louis Cartier in 1917, was inspired by the Renault FT-17 battle tank used in the first world war. Today there are many imitators but the ‘real’ tank watch can only be one made by Cartier.
Tonneau
The term refers to the shape of a watch’s case, which has to be rectangle with gently curving sides. Cartier designed the first tonneau watch back in 1906, though the shape has since then been used by many other watchmakers.
Tourbillon
This is a type of escapement that’s housed in a rotating cage, the use of which is meant to counter the effects of gravity on the watch’s seconds hand. Complicated and massively expensive to produce, the tourbillion is only found on very high-end watches and while it does improve accuracy, it’s also used to showcase a luxury watchmaker’s sheer technical expertise.
Winder
An electrically operated box or case that gently rotates in multiple directions. An automatic watch that’s not worn regularly can be kept in a winder to keep it moving, which keeps its mainspring wound up, thus ensuring that the watch keeps running.
World Timer
World timer watches have a dial that tells the time in 24 different time zones, represented by 24 cities around the world. The names of these 24 cities are printed on the dial and going by the scale placed next to these cities, you can see the exact time in any of the 24 cities by looking at the position of the hour hand on the watch.
Now that you know at least something about what those scary-sounding terms mean, it's perhaps time to start saving up for your first fancy watch with some of those cool complications!
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