Word.ws English Dictionary

refocus

refocus verb: to focus on something else.

Verb

refocus (third-person singular simple present refocuses or refocusses, present participle refocusing or refocussing, simple past and past participle refocused or refocussed)

  1. (intransitive) to focus on something else
    • Labour frontbencher Louise Haigh (Shadow Transport Secretary for heaven's sake!) initially lambasted TOCs before the handful of specialist rail commentators fell on her tweets and she changed her tune, refocusing her fire on Government.2023 August 9, Nigel Harris, “Comment: Disinterested and dishonest”, in RAIL, number 989, page 3
  2. (transitive) to change the focus of
    • to refocus a microscope
    • These two sets of questions are interrelated in such a way that they often actually work to prevent productive discussion of the movie's politics. Just a few observations might make this point clear, and help to refocus the debate that has surrounded the film since its opening earlier this summer.1989 August 12, Phil Harper, “Why It's So Hard To Talk About This Movie”, in Gay Community News, volume 17, number 5, page 9
  3. (intransitive) to change one's priorities
  4. (intransitive) to come back into focus
    • Presently the white, broken stumps, the split sticks and the tangle of the thicket refocused.1954, William Golding, Lord of the Flies

Examples of refocus in a sentence

  • 'He's the one who did it.' Eboricus refocused his gaze on Cadrus.
  • It took the anxiety off my nerves just long enough to refocus the balance of the day.
  • You can use these tools when the boy needs calming or when he needs to rev his brain to refocus.

All 10 example sentences with refocus

Forms of refocus

third-person singular presentrefocuses
third-person singular presentrefocusses
present participlerefocusing
present participlerefocussing
past participlerefocused
pastrefocused
past participlerefocussed
pastrefocussed

Past tense of refocus: refocused or refocussed

Origin of refocus

From re- + focus.

Words formed from refocus

Questions about refocus

What does refocus mean?
Refocus means to focus on something else.
What part of speech is refocus?
Refocus is a verb.
What is the past tense of refocus?
The past tense of refocus is refocused.

Words near refocus in the dictionary

  1. refocillated
  2. refocillates
  3. refocillating
  4. refocillation
  5. refocillations
  6. refocus
  7. refocusable
  8. refocused
  9. refocuser
  10. refocusers
  11. refocuses

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: refocus (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “refocus.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/refocus. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.