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Focus   /fˈoʊkəs/  /fˈoʊkɪs/   Listen
Focus

noun
(pl. E. focuses, L. foci)
1.
The concentration of attention or energy on something.  Synonyms: centering, direction, focal point, focusing, focussing.  "He had no direction in his life"
2.
Maximum clarity or distinctness of an image rendered by an optical system.  "Out of focus"
3.
Maximum clarity or distinctness of an idea.
4.
A central point or locus of an infection in an organism.  Synonyms: focal point, nidus.
5.
Special emphasis attached to something.  Synonym: stress.
6.
A point of convergence of light (or other radiation) or a point from which it diverges.  Synonym: focal point.
7.
A fixed reference point on the concave side of a conic section.
verb
(past & past part. focused or focussed; pres. part. focusing or focussing)
1.
Direct one's attention on something.  Synonyms: center, centre, concentrate, pore, rivet.
2.
Cause to converge on or toward a central point.
3.
Bring into focus or alignment; to converge or cause to converge; of ideas or emotions.  Synonyms: concenter, concentre, focalise, focalize.
4.
Become focussed or come into focus.  Synonyms: focalise, focalize.
5.
Put (an image) into focus.  Synonyms: focalise, focalize, sharpen.



Related searches:
focus on
focusing
focussing
refocus


WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University


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"Focus" Quotes from Famous Books



... diffused over the whole surface of the body; but light is focalized in the eye; sound in the ear. The organization of a sense or a pleasure seems diluted and imperfect, unless it is gathered by some machinery into one focus, or local centre. And thus it is that a general state of pleasurable feeling sometimes seems too superficially diffused, and one has a craving to intensify or brighten it by concentration through some sufficient stimulant. ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... perspective vision receives constant reinforcement from the facts of daily experience. The influence of the above-described changes in experimental conditions is mediated through their effect upon the location of the focus of the limiting and perspective lines of vision. As the plane of the upper boundaries of the enclosing walls was elevated and depressed the intersection of the two systems of lines was correspondingly raised and lowered, and in dependence upon the location of this imaginary point the determination ...
— Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 1 • Various
... a change, unable to name it, but impossible to escape it. He was different. His eyes were bright, and they looked at her with a focus ...
— The Girl Scouts at Bellaire - Or Maid Mary's Awakening • Lilian C. McNamara Garis
... surface of the sea and then traced their luminous way on the overhanging clouds. Another shift and the shining pathway reached to their very feet, illuminating with its radiance every object within its focus, down to the tiniest shell upon the beach. Esmay, startled, clung to ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen
... of Miss Mary Blanchet's face. She had not good sight, for all their brightness. When any one talked with her at some little distance across a room, or even across a broad table, he could easily see by the irresponsive look of the eyes—the eyes which never quite found a common focus with his even during the most animated interchange of thought—that Miss Blanchet had short sight. But Miss Blanchet always frankly and firmly declined to put on spectacles. "I have only my eyes to boast of, my ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various


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