[Klaus]

I have to admit that I didn't know the linguistic background so far ...

 

The term comes from the 
Japanese word 
<i>boke</i> (
暈け
 or 
ボケ
), which means 
<a class="" href="https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/bokeh" title="wikt:bokeh">"blur"</a> or "haze", or 
<i>boke-aji</i> (
ボケ味
), the "blur quality". The Japanese term 
<i>boke</i> is also used in the sense of a mental haze or senility.
^[7] The term 
<a class="" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bokashi_(disambiguation)" title="Bokashi (disambiguation)">bokashi</a> (
暈かし
) is related, meaning intentional blurring or gradation.


The English spelling 
<i>bokeh</i> was popularized in 1997 in 
<i>Photo Techniques</i> magazine ...