English
focus
Focus comes from Latin focus ‘hearth, fireplace’.
- Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEfocus‘hearth’
- Englishearliest quotation 1897focus
attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed deepest recorded ancestor
Lineage
- Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEfocus‘hearth’
- Englishearliest quotation 1897focus
Earliest quotation: 1897, Bram Stoker, Dracula: “Whole pages of it are filled with masses of…”
The story
"One of the interesting properties of an ellipse is that if there were a light bulb at one focus, then all the light that it emits would reflect off the ellipse and converge at the other focus. This is why Kepler originally used the name focus for these points."
Linked words
through Proto-Indo-European *bʰeh₂- ‘to shine’
phone, professor, ben, phase, favor, famous, favourite, ban, fantasy, fate, fancy, fame, photographer, emphasis, phenomenon, profession, fatal, bee, fairy, abandon, infant, confession, fabulous, confess, phantom, symphony, beacon, beck, boon, eff, fab, fay, bane, prophetic, epiphany, fable, banish, buoy, profess, fantasia, 125 more
through Latin focus ‘hearth, fireplace’
Today it means
noun A point at which reflected or refracted rays of light converge.
Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word.
Etymograph / Latin focus / focus