If you go to an optometrist to get glasses or contact lenses, you will get a prescription specified in units of diopters. This is a measure of the refractive power of the lens needed, which means it's a measure of the focal length of the lens. The two are, in fact, inversely related:

refractive power in diopters = 1 / focal length in meters

A diopter has units of 1 / m .

If the lenses you get are specified as 5.0 diopters, it means they have a focal length of 0.2 m, meaning that they are converging lenses that bring parallel rays of light to a focus 0.2 m beyond the lens. Similarly, lenses of -2.0 diopters correspond to a focal length of -0.5 m; these would be diverging lenses with a focal point 0.5 m from the lens.