(Or "wall CLock time") 1. "Real world" time (what the CLock on the wall shows), as opposed to the system CLock' s idea of time. 2. The real running time of a program, as opposed to the number of ticks required to execute it (on a time-sharing system these always differ, as no one program gets all the ticks, and on multiprocessor systems with good thread support one may get more processor time than real time). [Jargon File]