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confocal

American

[kon-foh-kuhl] / kɒnˈfoʊ kəl /

adjective

Mathematics.

having the same focus or foci.

confocal British

/ kɒnˈfəʊkəl /

adjective

having a common focus or common foci

confocal ellipses

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Etymology

Origin of confocal

First recorded in 1865–70; con- + focal

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

See Examples For:

confocal

It is blocking out the light so she can work at a highly-sensitive confocal microscope that uses lasers to illuminate brain samples.

From BBC ● Dec. 26, 2025

We also relied on confocal and super-high resolution microscopy in isolated mouse heart muscle cells that were treated with the labeled protein.

From Science Daily ● Oct. 13, 2025

The team also used confocal microscopy, a technique that allows for higher resolution images of certain sections of the artifacts.

From Washington Post ● Dec. 13, 2019

Point-scanning confocal microscopes produce sharp images of subcellular structures by scanning a tightly focused laser beam across a sample, exciting fluorescence in the sample pixel by pixel.

From Nature ● Nov. 25, 2019

Two ellipsoids in which the principal sections lie in the same planes, and have the same foci, are called confocal.

From The New Gresham Encyclopedia Volume 4, Part 2: Ebert to Estremadura by Various

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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023