Spring some definitions

Spring ApplicationContext is essentially a registry of application objects.
The ApplicationContext object actually extends a Spring class called BeanFactory.
In reality, BeanFactory provides a good deal of the functionality developers often associate with an ApplicationContext.
A BeanFactory reads configuration data from a file typically, but not always, formatted in XML, and creates the types of objects desired. It manages dependencies between objects and provides a mechanism to control their lifecycles.
Spring is an 'interface-driven' framework and ApplicationContext (which includes BeanFactory) implements numerous interfaces that define its behavior.