Example sentences
wǒ我de的shǒu手biǎo表huài坏le了。
My watch is broken.
tā他mǎi买le了yī一kuài块xīn新shǒu手biǎo表。
He bought a new watch.
About this word
手 is the hand, 表 is a surface, and by extension a dial or a gauge. A 手表 is a gauge you wear on your wrist. The same 表 turns up in 电表 (electricity meter), 水表 (water meter) and 体温表 (thermometer), all instruments that give you a reading. The word came in with the object; before wristwatches there was 怀表, the pocket watch carried at the bosom.
The story behind the character
手
手 is a hand, drawn from life. The oldest form shows the fingers spread and the arm coming down below. Xu Shen gave it four characters: 手，拳也, a fist. Everything you do with it is in the word: 手表, the watch strapped to it, and 手机, the hand machine in your pocket.
表
表 is 衣 (clothing) with 毛 (fur) tucked inside. In ancient China, if you wore fur you wore it hair side out, so the fur was the surface everyone saw. 表 became the word for outside, the face of a thing. The timepiece sense in 手表 is older still: a 表 was a post planted upright to read the sun's shadow.