background vs focus

background

noun
  • One's social heritage, or previous life; what one did in the past. 

  • Information relevant to the current situation about past events; history. 

  • The image or color over which a computer's desktop items are shown (e.g. icons or application windows). 

  • A part of the picture that depicts scenery to the rear or behind the main subject; context. 

  • A less important feature of scenery (as opposed to foreground). 

  • A type of activity on a computer that is not normally visible to the user. 

adj
  • Less important or less noticeable in a scene or system. 

verb
  • To put in a position that is not prominent. 

  • To gather and provide background information (on). 

focus

noun
  • The fact of the convergence of light on the photographic medium. 

  • A point of a conic at which rays reflected from a curve or surface converge. 

  • The most important word or phrase in a sentence or passage, or the one that imparts information. 

  • The quality of the convergence of light on the photographic medium. 

  • A point at which reflected or refracted rays of light converge. 

  • The exact point of where an earthquake occurs, in three dimensions (underneath the epicentre). 

  • The status of being the currently active element in a user interface, often indicated by a visual highlight. 

  • Concentration of attention. 

  • An object used in casting a magic spell. 

verb
  • To adjust (a lens, an optical instrument) in order to position an image with respect to the focal plane. 

  • To transfer the input focus to (a visual element), so that it receives subsequent input. 

  • To direct attention, effort, or energy to a particular audience or task. 

  • To concentrate one’s attention. 

  • To concentrate during a task. 

  • To cause (rays of light, etc) to converge at a single point. 

  • To aggregate figures of accounts. 

How often have the words background and focus occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )