The word “bokeh” should be familiar to photographers as the blurred or out-of-focus areas of an image, but it only entered English in the 1990s. It comes from the Japanese word “boke,” a shortened form of “pinboke,” meaning “state of being out of focus,” which came from “bokeru,” meaning “become befuddled.” The Japanese roots have nothing to do with photography, but some of the top camera brands (Nikon, Canon, Minolta, Pentax, to name a few) are Japanese, which likely contributed to the field’s language. A bokeh effect can be achieved with certain lenses during the photography process, but it can also be achieved now through digital editing.