4 meanings, 15 uses
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1 —2 uses as in:
Turn your focus to question #2.
Definition
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)
noun: the act of concentration, or the ability to concentrate
(to concentrate is to direct attention or effort towards a single thing)
- And she told him to focus his eyes directly at her—yes, they definitely had a dull flicker.6.5 - An Attack Repulsed (73% in)
- Her dainty ringer resting lightly on the glass, Ellen Brand focused her large, pure, childlike eyes beyond immediate matters and directed her gaze instead at the nightstand lamp.7.8 - Highly Questionable (27% in)
There are no more uses of "focus" flagged with this meaning in The Magic Mountain.
Typical Usage
(best examples)
2 —1 use as in:
The focus of our study is...
Definition
where attention is concentrated or directed
- ...the Enlightenment, and the teachings of nineteenth-century science and economics have omitted nothing, absolutely nothing, that seemed even vaguely useful for furthering such degradation, beginning with modern astronomy—which turned the focal point of the universe, that sublime arena where God and Satan struggled to possess the creature whom they both ardently coveted, into an unimportant little planet, and, for now at least, has put an end to man's grand position in the cosmos, upon...6.3 - The City of God and Evil Deliverance (38% in)
There are no more uses of "focus" flagged with this meaning in The Magic Mountain.
Typical Usage
(best examples)
3 —1 use as in:
bring into focus; or out of focus
Definition
a state where something has come into view or can be seen clearly
(Typically this is said of the appearance of an image or picture, but it can also be said of something that get's attention, or of an understanding that become clear.)
(Typically this is said of the appearance of an image or picture, but it can also be said of something that get's attention, or of an understanding that become clear.)
- The actors who had been cast in the play they had just seen had long since been scattered to the winds; they had watched only phantoms, whose deeds had been reduced to a million photographs brought into focus for the briefest of moments so that, as often as one liked, they could then be given back to the element of time as a series of blinking flashes.5.8 - Danse Macabre (86% in)
There are no more uses of "focus" flagged with this meaning in The Magic Mountain.
Typical Usage
(best examples)
4 —3 uses
technical usage
Definition
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
- A few foci have been fully reabsorbed, the pocket has grown smaller and is more sharply defined, which, being a well-informed patient, you know indicates healing.7.6 - The Great Stupor (8% in)
Other Uses (with this meaning)
- The focus of the group, she was sitting on the sofa behind the round table at the far end of the small salon, her face turned toward the game room.3.9 - Satana Makes Shameful Suggestions (29% in)
- ...about how the bacillus irritated the cells of the tissue in the bronchi and air sacs of the lungs, about the formation of tubercles and the production of soluble intoxicating toxins, the deterioration of the cells and the process of caseation, which if it continued to petrify into chalky scar tissue meant a beneficial arrest of the disease, but if it went on to build ever-larger soft foci, created cavities that ate away at everything around them and finally destroyed the entire organ.6.5 - An Attack Repulsed (46% in)
There are no more uses of "focus" flagged with this meaning in The Magic Mountain.
Typical Usage
(best examples)
? —8 uses
exact meaning not specified
- And the engagement of his personality promptly had a bracing, focusing effect.7.3 - Vingt et un (73% in)
- From then on, his mind was muddled, his focus narrow; and in his befuddlement he made mistakes in his business, resulting in serious losses for the firm of Castorp and Son.2.1 - The Baptismal Bowl / Grandfather in His Two Forms (3% in)
- I would not yet call it a focus for softening tissue, but it is certainly a moist spot.4.10 - The Thermometer (95% in)
- To be sure, in between such moments, he could be silent, too, if not to say turned in upon himself; for although his attention was directed outward, it was focused on just one point.5.4 - Mercury's Moods (14% in)
- Our great cities are the perfect symbol—these centers and focal points of civilization, these crucibles of thought.5.5 - Encyclopedia (47% in)
- His black eyes were focused in a fixed, thoughtful stare at the young man's face.5.5 - Encyclopedia (51% in)
- There sat death, a humanistic rhetorician clad in a blue coat; and when you focused on this philanthropic and pedagogic god of literature, what you saw crouching there had a monkey face, with the symbols of night and sorcery on its brow.6.8 - A Good Soldier (61% in)
- Hans Castorp's grief and worry did not prevent him from focusing objectively on this phenomenon, and he formulated awkward, but clearheaded observations about it in his conversations with Naphta and Settembrini, when he would report to them about his cousin's condition; he was rebuked by the Italian, however, for observing that there was an underlying error in the conventional notion that philosophical credulity and sanguine trust in the good are expressions of health, whereas...6.8 - A Good Soldier (89% in)
There are no more uses of "focus" in The Magic Mountain.
Typical Usage
(best examples)