Why “horophile” is a great word
HOROPHILE — [Noun] A person who has a special interest in timekeeping devices, especially watches and clocks. From the Ancient Greek prefix horo- (from ὥρα, hṓra, meaning "time, hour") combined with the suffix -phile (from φίλος, phílos, meaning "loving, dear"). Unlike a "horologist," who makes or repairs the mechanisms, or a general "collector," who merely accumulates, the horophile is a connoisseur for whom the device is an object of art, history, and philosophical wonder. It is the patient study of a skeleton movement's ballet under a loupe, the tactile pleasure of winding a crown at the day's end, and the silent communion with a chronograph whose split-second hand still snaps to attention after eighty years—a quiet devotion not to the measurement of time, but to the exquisite machinery that has dignified its passage.