Noun

(es)

An object, usually made of glass, that focuses or defocuses the light that passes through it.

* {{quote-magazine, year=2013, month=July-August, author= Catherine Clabby

, magazine=(American Scientist), title= Focus on Everything , passage=Not long ago, it was difficult to produce photographs of tiny creatures with every part in focus. That’s because the lenses that are excellent at magnifying tiny subjects produce a narrow depth of field.}}

A device which focuses or defocuses electron beams.

(geometry) A convex shape bounded by two circular arcs, joined at their endpoints, the corresponding concave shape being a lune.

(biology) A genus of the legume family; its bean.

(anatomy) The transparent crystalline structure in the eye.

* {{quote-magazine, year=2013, month=July-August, author= Fenella Saunders, magazine=(American Scientist)

, title= Tiny Lenses See the Big Picture , passage=The single-imaging optic of the mammalian eye offers some distinct visual advantages. Such lenses can take in photons from a wide range of angles, increasing light sensitivity. They also have high spatial resolution, resolving incoming images in minute detail.}}

(by extension, figuratively) A way of looking, literally or figuratively, at something.

* 2004 April 11, Ann Hulbert, "Are the Kids All Right?", in (The New York Times Magazine) , page 11:

If "the public looks at the condition of America's children largely through a negative lens ," worries Child Trends promote child well-being."

Noun

(en noun)

The act of touching physically; being in close association.

* {{quote-book, year=1935, author= George Goodchild

, title=Death on the Centre Court, chapter=1 , passage=She mixed furniture with the same fatal profligacy as she mixed drinks, and this outrageous contact between things which were intended by Nature to be kept poles apart gave her an inexpressible thrill.}}

The establishment of communication (with).

*

, title=(The Celebrity), chapter=1 , passage=In the old days, […], he gave no evidences of genius whatsoever. He never read me any of his manuscripts, […], and therefore my lack of detection of his promise may in some degree be pardoned. But he had then none of the oddities and mannerisms which I hold to be inseparable from genius, and which struck my attention in after days when I came in contact with the Celebrity.}}

A nodule designed to connect a device with something else.

Someone with whom one is in communication.

(label) A contact lens.

(label) A device designed for repetitive connections.

Contact juggling.

(mining) The plane between two adjacent bodies of dissimilar rock.

(Raymond)