Clock face - wikipedia Clock face This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. ( February 2015 ) A wall clock showing the time at 10 : 09 A clock face, or dial, is the part of an analog clock ( or watch ) that displays the time through the use of a fixed - numbered dial or dials and moving hands. In its most basic form, recognized throughout the world, the periphery of the dial is numbered 1 through 12 indicating the hours in a 12 - hour cycle, and a short hour hand makes two revolutions in a day. A long minute hand makes one revolution every hour. The face may also include a second hand, which makes one revolution per minute. The term is less commonly used for the time display on digital clocks and watches. A second type of clock face is the 24 - hour analog dial, widely used in military and other organizations that use 24 - hour time. This is similar to the 12 - hour dial above, except it has hours numbered 1 -- 24 around the outside, and the hour hand makes only one revolution per day. Some special - purpose clocks, such as timers and sporting event clocks, are designed for measuring periods less than one hour. Clocks can indicate the hour with Roman numerals or Hindu -- Arabic numerals, or with non-numeric indicator marks. The two numbering systems have also been used in combination, with the prior indicating the hour and the latter the minute. Longcase clocks ( grandfather clocks ) typically use Roman numerals for the hours. Clocks using only Arabic numerals first began to appear in the mid-18th century. The clock face is so familiar that the numbers are often omitted and replaced with applied indices ( undifferentiated hour marks ), particularly in the case of watches. Occasionally, markings of any sort are dispensed with, and the time is read by the angles of the hands. Contents 1 Reading a modern clock face 2 Historical development 2.1 French Decimal time 3 Stylistic development 4 See also 5 Footnotes Reading a modern clock face ' 12 : 14 ' in both analog and digital representations. In the analog clock, the minute hand is on `` 14 '' minutes, and the hour hand is moving from `` 12 '' to `` 1 '' - this indicates a time of 12 : 14. A ship 's radio room wall clock during the age of wireless telegraphy showing ' 10 : 09 ' and 36 seconds ' Most modern clocks have the numbers 1 through 12 printed at equally spaced intervals around the periphery of the face with the 12 at the top, indicating the hour, and on many models, sixty dots or lines evenly spaced in a ring around the outside of the dial, indicating minutes and seconds. The time is read by observing the placement of several `` hands '', which emanate from the centre of the dial : A short, thick `` hour '' hand ; A long, thinner `` minute '' hand ; On some models, a very thin `` second '' or `` sweep '' hand All the hands continuously rotate around the dial in a clockwise direction -- in the direction of increasing numbers. The second, or sweep, hand moves relatively quickly, taking a full minute ( sixty seconds ) to make a complete rotation from 12 to 12. For every rotation of the second hand, the minute hand will move from one minute mark to the next. The minute hand rotates more slowly around the dial. It takes one hour ( sixty minutes ) to make a complete rotation from 12 to 12. For every rotation of the minute hand, the hour hand will move from one hour mark to the next. The hour hand moves slowest of all, taking twelve hours ( half a day ) to make a complete rotation. It starts from `` 12 '' at midnight, makes one rotation until it is pointing at `` 12 '' again at noon, and then makes another rotation until it is pointing at `` 12 '' again at midnight of the next morning. Historical development 15th - century rotating dial clock face, St. Mary 's Church, Gdańsk, Poland. Clocks existed before clock faces. The first mechanical clocks, built in 13th - century Europe, were striking clocks : their purpose was to ring bells upon the canonical hours, to call the local community to prayer. These were tower clocks installed in bell towers in public places, to ensure that the bells were audible over a wide area. Soon after these first mechanical clocks were in place people realized that their wheels could be used to drive an indicator on a dial on the outside of the tower, where it could be widely seen. Before the late 14th century, a fixed hand ( often a carving literally shaped like a hand ) indicated the hour by pointing to numbers on a rotating dial ; after this time, the current convention of a rotating hand on a fixed dial was adopted. Minute hands ( so named because they indicated the small, or minute, divisions of the hour ) only came into regular use around 1690, after the invention of the pendulum and anchor escapement increased the precision of time - telling enough to justify it. In some precision clocks, a third hand, which rotated once a minute, was added in a separate subdial. This was called the `` second - minute '' hand ( because it measured the secondary minute divisions of the hour ), which was shortened to `` second '' hand. The convention of the hands moving clockwise evolved in imitation of the sundial. In the Northern hemisphere, where the clock face originated, the shadow of the gnomon on a horizontal sundial moves clockwise during the day. This was also why noon or 12 o'clock was conventionally located at the top of the dial. French 10 - hour clock French decimal time Main article : Decimal time During the French Revolution in 1793, in connection with its Republican calendar, France attempted to introduce a decimal time system. This had 10 decimal hours in the day, 100 decimal minutes per hour, and 100 decimal seconds per minute. Therefore, the decimal hour was more than twice as long ( 144 min ) as the present hour, the decimal minute was slightly longer than the present minute ( 86 seconds ) and the decimal second was slightly shorter ( 0.86 sec ) than the present second. Clocks were manufactured with this alternate face, usually combined with traditional hour markings. However, it did not catch on, and France discontinued the mandatory use of decimal time on 7 April 1795, although some French cities used decimal time until 1801. Stylistic development A modern quartz clock with a 24 hour face A simple 24 hour clock showing the approximate position of the sun. Until the last quarter of the 17th century, hour markings were etched into metal faces and the recesses filled with black wax. Subsequently, higher contrast and improved readability was achieved with white enamel plaques painted with black numbers. Initially, the numbers were printed on small, individual plaques mounted on a brass substructure. This was not a stylistic decision, rather enamel production technology had not yet achieved the ability to create large pieces of enamel. The `` 13 - piece face '' was an early attempt to create an entirely white enamel face. As the name suggests, it was composed of 13 enamel plaques : 12 numbered wedges fitted around a circle. The first single - piece enamel faces, not unlike those in production today, began to appear c. 1735. It is customary for modern advertisements to display clocks and watches at 10 : 10 or thereabouts, as this V - shaped arrangement roughly makes a smile, imitates a human figure with raised arms, and leaves the watch company 's logo unobscured by the hands. See also Clock position Footnotes Wikimedia Commons has media related to Clock faces. Wikimedia Commons has media related to Clocks with Roman numerals. ^ Jump up to : Milham, Willis I. ( 1945 ). Time and Timekeepers. New York : MacMillan. p. 195. ISBN 0 - 7808 - 0008 - 7. Jump up ^ Lathrop, Don Haven ( 1996 ). `` Why is clockwise Clockwise ? ''. Workshop Hints. Donn Haven Lathrop, 2008 ( originally British Horological Institute ). Archived from the original on 2011 - 11 - 15. Retrieved 2008 - 06 - 27. Jump up ^ The Horological Foundation ( 2008 ). `` The Republican Calendar and Decimal Time ''. antique-horology.org, Netherlands. Retrieved 2009 - 01 - 08. Jump up ^ Richard Brown ( October 2004 ). Replica Watch Report. ChronoSafe Media. p. 35. ISBN 978 - 1 - 4116 - 1454 - 3. Rolex always has their watches set to 10 : 10 and 31 seconds. Jump up ^ Roni Zirinski ( 2005 ). Ad Hoc Arabism : Advertising, Culture and Technology in Saudi Arabia. Peter Lang. p. 42. ISBN 978 - 0 - 8204 - 7445 - 8. ( I ) n almost all the advertisements for timepieces, the time is 10 : 10 ( or somewhere between 10 : 08 and 10 : 11 ). This arrangement of the watch hands, creating a V - for - Victory sign, is an advertising technique meant to emphasize the name of the company, which usually appears in the upper part of the watch ; it is common practice both in the West and in the Far East. GND : 4213293 - 9 Retrieved from `` https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Clock_face&oldid=847971286 '' Categories : Timekeeping components Hidden categories : Articles needing additional references from February 2015 All articles needing additional references All articles with unsourced statements Articles with unsourced statements from February 2015 Articles with unsourced statements from December 2011 Commons category with local link different than on Wikidata Wikipedia articles with GND identifiers Talk Contents About Wikipedia Čeština Deutsch Español Esperanto Français Nederlands Русский Svenska Українська Edit links This page was last edited on 29 June 2018, at 00 : 38 ( UTC ). Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution - ShareAlike License ; additional terms may apply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Wikipedia ® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization. About Wikipedia

Question: what does the small hand on the clock mean
Answer: hour hand