The minute is a unit of time or of angle. As a unit of time, the minute is equal to 1⁄60 (the first sexagesimal fraction) of an hour or 60 seconds. In the UTC time standard, a minute on rare occasions has 61 seconds, a consequence of leap seconds (there is a provision to insert a negative leap second which would result in a 59 second minute, but this has never happened in more than four decades under this system).