noun · 1 senses · updated from the 2026-07-25 local source snapshot
Definitions and examples are grouped by meaning. Pronunciation, history, word forms, translations, descendants, synonyms, antonyms, derived terms, and related words appear whenever the source provides them.
Sound
Pronunciation
Each Play button uses your device's default local English voice, or a natural local fallback. The selected voice name appears after playback. This is synthesized speech, not a source recording.
UK:/ˈbəʊ.kə/
UK:/ˈbəʊˌkeɪ/
Australian, US:/ˈboʊ.kə/
Australian, US:/ˈboʊˌkeɪ/
Australia:Recorded audio is listed in the source snapshot.
1
noun
Meaning 1
A subjective aesthetic quality of out-of-focus areas of an image projected by a camera lens.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: uncountable, usually
Topics: arts, hobbies, lifestyle, photography
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Meaning relationships
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
History
Etymology
Learned borrowing from Japanese 暈(ぼ)け (boke, “blur”), the nominalized form of 暈(ぼ)ける (bokeru, “to blur”). The terminal -h, absent in the romanization boke, is a pronunciation guide so that it is not pronounced as /boʊk/ as it would be under standard English orthography. Contrast karate and karaoke, which have undergone sound changes. The term has been used since at least 1996, with the spelling bokeh introduced by editor Mike Johnston in the March–April 1997 issue of Photo Techniques magazine, Johnston writing “it is properly pronounced with bo as in bone and ke as in Kenneth, with equal stress on either syllable”.
Across languages
Translations
37 source translations are retained for this English entry.
Arabic:
بوكيه
— subjective aesthetic quality of out-of-focus areas of an image
Armenian:
բոկե
(boke)
— subjective aesthetic quality of out-of-focus areas of an image
Bulgarian:
боке
(boke)
— subjective aesthetic quality of out-of-focus areas of an image
Catalan:
bokeh
— subjective aesthetic quality of out-of-focus areas of an image
Chinese Mandarin:
散景
(sǎnjǐng)
— subjective aesthetic quality of out-of-focus areas of an image
Czech:
bokeh
— subjective aesthetic quality of out-of-focus areas of an image
Danish:
bokeh
— subjective aesthetic quality of out-of-focus areas of an image
Dutch:
bokeh
— subjective aesthetic quality of out-of-focus areas of an image
Esperanto:
bokeo
— subjective aesthetic quality of out-of-focus areas of an image
Finnish:
boke
— subjective aesthetic quality of out-of-focus areas of an image
French:
bokeh
— subjective aesthetic quality of out-of-focus areas of an image
Galician:
boke
— subjective aesthetic quality of out-of-focus areas of an image
German:
Bokeh
— subjective aesthetic quality of out-of-focus areas of an image
Hebrew:
בוקה
— subjective aesthetic quality of out-of-focus areas of an image
Hungarian:
bokeh
— subjective aesthetic quality of out-of-focus areas of an image
Indonesian:
bokeh
— subjective aesthetic quality of out-of-focus areas of an image
Italian:
bokeh
— subjective aesthetic quality of out-of-focus areas of an image
Japanese:
ボケ
(boke)
— subjective aesthetic quality of out-of-focus areas of an image
Korean:
보케
(boke)
— subjective aesthetic quality of out-of-focus areas of an image
Limburgish:
bokeh
— subjective aesthetic quality of out-of-focus areas of an image
Luxembourgish:
bokeh
— subjective aesthetic quality of out-of-focus areas of an image
Malayalam:
ബൊക്കെ
(bokke)
— subjective aesthetic quality of out-of-focus areas of an image
Marathi:
बोके
(boke)
— subjective aesthetic quality of out-of-focus areas of an image
Norwegian:
bokeh
— subjective aesthetic quality of out-of-focus areas of an image
Persian:
بوکه
— subjective aesthetic quality of out-of-focus areas of an image
Polish:
bokeh
— subjective aesthetic quality of out-of-focus areas of an image
Portuguese:
bokeh
— subjective aesthetic quality of out-of-focus areas of an image
Russian:
боке
(boke)
— subjective aesthetic quality of out-of-focus areas of an image
Serbo-Croatian:
бокеx
— subjective aesthetic quality of out-of-focus areas of an image
Slovak:
bokeh
— subjective aesthetic quality of out-of-focus areas of an image
Slovene:
bokeh
— subjective aesthetic quality of out-of-focus areas of an image
Spanish:
bokeh
— subjective aesthetic quality of out-of-focus areas of an image
Swedish:
bokeh
— subjective aesthetic quality of out-of-focus areas of an image
Tamil:
போக்கா
(pōkkā)
— subjective aesthetic quality of out-of-focus areas of an image
Turkish:
bokeh
— subjective aesthetic quality of out-of-focus areas of an image
Ukrainian:
боке
(boke)
— subjective aesthetic quality of out-of-focus areas of an image
Vietnamese:
bokeh
— subjective aesthetic quality of out-of-focus areas of an image