Watchmaking and precision mechanics

The forty-first entry is la tige de remontoir, the winding stem, and its last word is one that English horology also uses, for something else entirely. In French, le remontoir is built on remonter, to wind up, and names the ordinary winding works: the crown is la couronne de remontoir, the stem behind it is la tige de remontoir, and every mechanical watch has both. English borrowed the word, often spelt « remontoire », and gave it one narrow job. An English « remontoire » is a constant-force mechanism: a small secondary spring or weight, rewound at intervals by the main train, which feeds the escapement an even impulse however much power is left upstream. It belongs to tower clocks, marine chronometers and a handful of very costly wristwatches. French calls that device un remontoir d’égalité, or simply une force constante. So a repairer’s note reading tige de remontoir cassée reports a broken winding stem, one of the cheapest parts on the bench, and rendering it with « remontoire » turns a routine repair into a rare and expensive mechanism.