Backwards
In the context of a watch it usually indicates a hand that does not make a complete circle, but rotates through some fraction and then jumps back to the start, rather then continuing. A good example is this blancpain the second hand, just above 6 o'clock,...
It is a style of display where at the end of the scale, the hand...
...needs to snap back to the start to continue. Retrograde display can be found on watches to tell the current hours, minutes, seconds, date, day of week, second time zone, etc. In the example below, the date is a retrograde date. At the end of day "31", ...
No stupid questions!
Thanks for posting here! If I try to answer your question very literally, I have to say that the best answer I can come up with is that the primary function of retrograding hands is to amuse the owners of the watches. There's really no pure functional rea...
Here's an example
Mickey Retrograde The minute hand on the Right Hand Side, snaps back, after reaching 60 minutes....
here's another fine example
the minute hand does 180 degrees then snaps back to 0 as the hour changes. hope that helps Graham...
and all this time I thought...
..... retrograde meant going back to when an A meant getting a 92% or better instead of the modern lax 90%.