English Explanatory Dictionary

bifocals

English dictionary entry

Meanings

noun
  1. Spectacles that have corrective lenses of two different powers; used by people who need both distance and reading glasses.

Word forms

bifocals

Etymology

From bi- + focal (see focus), coined in 1824 by John Isaac Hawkins, inventor of trifocals. When the concept of bifocals was originally conceived by Benjamin Franklin, he called them double spectacles.

Related words

bifocal multifocals trifocals

Derived words

bifocaled
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