Glossary
12 Hour (also 24 Hour) Recorder / Register: A smaller dial within a watch which is capable of tracking time periods of up to 12 or 24 hours.
Analog: Description of a watch using hour and minute hands to display the time as opposed to digital numbers.
Anti-Magnetic: Because a an analog watch’s movement can be thrown out of balance by magnetism from cars, refrigerators, TV’s or speakers, this feature was develop to guard against such damage. Digital watches are not affected by magnetism.
Automatic Winding: Also known as self-winding, this type of watch uses the motion of the person wearing the watch to generate the energy to keep in perpetual motion rather than relying on a quartz or battery power. Watches of this type have their mainspring wound by a rotor responding to human motion so they must be worn daily since they will need to be wound by hand if not used regularly.
Balance: The oscillator within a watch which controls the speed of a mechanical watch’s movements.
Bezel: Ring surrounding the top casing of a watch’s face, sometimes able to rotate. May be marked at 60 second intervals, as in a diver’s watch.
Case: This is the part of the watch that holds the elements which track the time. It consists of the bezel to hold the crystal of its face, the band which encircles the wrist and a back of the casing that is either snapped or screwed in to hold the device together.
Chronograph: Not to be confused with chronometer, this is a watch which offers a built in stopwatch functionality. The timer can be started and stopped to time laps and help determine rates of speed across a given distance.
Chronometer: This literally comes from the Greek words for time (chronos) and measure (meter). All watches are chronometers, but those produced in Switzerland must meet rigorous standards by an agency called the Swiss
Official Chronometer Control in order to bear this title thus making them exceptionally high in quality.
Complication: An additional feature added to a watch such as (beyond its calendar showing the month and date) a list of the day of the week or the phases of the moon or even an alarm. This is what any extra feature added is generally referred to as.
Crystal: The cover over the face of a watch, always transparent. Can be made of glass, plastic or synthetic sapphire. High end models use extremely durable sapphire crystal resistant to scratches and shattering.
Dial: Also called the face of a watch. Marked with numbers or other symbols to symbolize hours and / or minutes.
Escapement: Refers to combination of parts that translate the power from mechanical watch’s mechanism into steady keeping of time. This is the element that causes the famous ticking sound of a watch.
Flyback: A hand on a chronograph that that is used to keep track of lap times or finishing times for multiple competitors in a race. The hand is set in motion to track the athlete’s time and once a button is pressed, it freezes to allow the recording of the time. A second button is pressed to make the hand “fly back” to the seconds hand, still in motion, so that another lap or racer’s time can be monitored.
Jewels: Either man made rubies or sapphires which serve as bearings for the gears of a mechanical watch by reducing friction levels. This increases the watch’s accuracy and makes it more durable.
LCD Display: Stands for Liquid Crystal Display and used for most digital watches made now. An advance over the previous Light Emitting Diode (LED) displays in older quartz digital watches which use more power. LCD can display time constantly rather than only at the press of a button.
Luminescence: A glow in the dark feature that some watches offer. Differs by brand with some using fluorescent materials activated by light to glow in darkness, others using electronic luminescence triggered by pressing a button on the watch.
Mainspring: The driving spring held within a mechanical watch.
Mineral Crystal: A crystal within a watch that is made from a type of glass that is not as prone to scratches as acrylic, but very difficult to polish.
Movement: This is the inner workings that serve as the engine of the watch, either mechanical or quartz. Manufacturers sometimes call this caliber.
Quartz: Used in both analog and digital watches, an oscillating quartz crystal monitored by tiny electronic circuit which divides 32,768 oscillations into one second divisions of time. Extremely accurate and powered by small battery inside the watch. Highly accurate versions oscillate the quartz at 4.2 million cycles a second.
Sapphire Crystal: A manmade sapphire that is a 9 on Moh’s scale of hardness which gives extreme resistance to scratching. Can chip or shatter so may not appeal to collectors.
Shock Resistance: Defined by United States government as a watch able to withstand force equal to being dropped onto a wood floor from three feet above.
Tachymeter: A scale that is used to measure a quantity of units per hour found usually built into the bezel of a chronograph watch. An event can be timed by using the second hand and then that hand is stopped once the event has ended. The hand, in the stopped position, will be indicating the number of units that could be expected per hour at the rate it has recorded.
Water Resistant: Also abbreviated WR, this indicates a watch’s ability to keep water from damaging it. The level of protection offered varies with WR50 Meters protecting up to 50 meters of depth, for example. A typical diver’s is usually 200 meters, but some highly specialized types can withstand water damage at up to 10,000 meters.
Winding – The motion needed to tighten the mainspring of a given watch. Used as a way to restore its power as opposed to using a batter. Done by hand in some models or through the motion of one’s arm in models that are automatically wound.