Focused or focussed?
Both are forms of focus: focused is the simple past and past participle of focus, and focussed the simple past and past participle of focus. On its own, focused is an adjective meaning “Directing all one's efforts towards achieving a particular goal”, and focussed an adjective meaning “Alternative spelling of focused”. Wiktionary gives them as spellings of the same word. In written English (wordfreq, 2021 data) focused is about 33 times as common as focussed.
What is the difference between focused and focussed?
| focused | focussed | |
|---|---|---|
| Part of speech | adjective, verb | adjective, verb |
| Meaning | Directing all one's efforts towards achieving a particular goal Dealing with some narrowly defined aspects of a broader phenomenon | CommonwealthAlternative spelling of focused |
| Example | none recorded | none recorded |
| Pronunciation | /ˈfəʊ.kəst/ /ˈfoʊ.kəst/ /ˈfəʉ.kəst/ | not recorded |
| In writing | 45 times per million words | 1.3 times per million words |
Sources: focused and focussed in the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Every current meaning of focused and focussed
focused
- 1
Directing all one's efforts towards achieving a particular goal
- 2
Dealing with some narrowly defined aspects of a broader phenomenon
focussed
- 1
CommonwealthAlternative spelling of focused
Source: the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); obsolete, archaic, dialect and rare senses left out.
Which is more common, focused or focussed?
focused appears 45 times per million words; focussed 1.3 times per million words.
focused 45 times per million wordsfocussed 1.3 times per million words
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).