Tourbillon

Quick meaning: Tourbillon is a noun meaning (horology) A rotating frame, containing the escapement of a clock or watch, that attempts to compensate for the effects of gravity.

Meaning

(horology) A rotating frame, containing the escapement of a clock or watch, that attempts to compensate for the effects of gravity.

More Meanings

1. A whirlwind.
2. A kind of firework that gyrates in the air.
3. Any part of a machine with a spiral movement.

Example Sentences

In their final year, each student must make their own watch with a complication—from a tourbillon to a chiming mode to having a date display.

Time was vulnerable to the force of gravity. So Breguet came up with the tourbillon, which isolated the balance wheel and escarpment off on a little platform of their own, geared to the third wheel, rotating about once a minute, assuming in the course of the day most positions in 3-D space relative to the gravity of the Earth, so the errors would cancel out and make time impervious to gravity.

Word Forms

• tourbillons

Related Words

Related dictionary entries include karrusel, balance, remontoir, snail-wheel, countwheel, verge.

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