All 4 Uses of
focus
in
Ulysses, by James Joyce
- All focussed their attention at the scene exhibited, a group of savage women in striped loincloths, squatted, blinking, suckling, frowning, sleeping amid a swarm of infants (there must have been quite a score of them) outside some primitive shanties of osier.†
Chpt 16focussed = concentratedunconventional spelling: Most English-speaking regions prefer to spell this focused.
- With strain, elevating a candlestick: with pain, feeling on his right temple a contused tumescence: with attention, focussing his gaze on a large dull passive and a slender bright active: with solicitation, bending and downturning the upturned rugfringe: with amusement, remembering Dr Malachi Mulligan's scheme of colour containing the gradation of green: with pleasure, repeating the words and antecedent act and perceiving through various channels of internal sensibility the consequent…
Chpt 17 *focussing = looking withunconventional spelling: Most English-speaking regions prefer to spell this focusing.
- He closed his long thin lips an instant but, eager to be on, raised an outspanned hand to his spectacles and, with trembling thumb and ringfinger touching lightly the black rims, steadied them to a new focus.†
Chpt 7
- Must be the focus where the rays cross.†
Chpt 8
Definitions:
-
(1)
(focus as in: Turn your focus to question #2.) verb: to concentrate, look at, or pay attention to
noun: the act of concentration, or the ability to concentrate
(to concentrate is to direct attention or effort towards a single thing) -
(2)
(focus as in: The focus of our study is...) where attention is concentrated or directed
-
(3)
(focus as in: bring into focus; or out of focus) a state where something has come into view or can be seen clearly; or an adjustment made to permit a clear view
-
(4)
(focus as with technical usage) technical usage typically involves some sense of center or concentration such as:
- physics — a point where things come together such as the point where light rays meet
- geometry — a fixed reference point (as of a parabola)
- geology — the point of origin of an earthquake
See a comprehensive dictionary for other less common meanings. - (5) (meaning too rare to warrant focus)