factor - Wiktionary, the free dictionary (original) (raw)

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

From Middle French facteur, from Latin factor (“a doer, maker, performer”), from factus (“done or made”), perfect passive participle of faciō (“do, make”).

factor (plural factors)

  1. (obsolete) A doer, maker; a person who does things for another person or organization.
    Hyponym: factotum
    The factor of the trading post bought the furs.
  2. An agent or representative; a reseller or distributor (sometimes with a private label); a consignee.
    • 1603, Michel de Montaigne, chapter 21, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes […], book II, London: […] Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], →OCLC:
      And let such as will number the Kings of Castile and Portugall amongst the warlike and magnanimous conquerors, seeke for some other adherent then my selfe, forsomuch as twelve hundred leagues from their idle residence they have made themselves masters of both Indias, onely by the conduct and direction of their factors, of whom it would be knowne whether they durst but goe and enjoy them in person.
    • 1985, Haynes Owners Workshop Manual, BMW:
      Motor factors — Good factors will stock all of the more important components which wear out relatively quickly.
  3. (law)
    1. A commission agent.
    2. A person or business organization that provides money for another's new business venture; one who finances another's business.
    3. A business organization that lends money on accounts receivable or buys and collects accounts receivable.
  4. One of the elements, circumstances, or influences which contribute to produce a result.
    The greatest factor in the decision was the need for public transportation.
    The economy was a factor in this year's budget figures.
    • 1864-1898, Herbert Spencer, Principles of Biology
      the material and dynamical factors of nutrition
    • 2013 August 6, John Michael McGrath, “The Frankenmeat of the Future”, in Hazlitt‎[1]:
      The UN, for its part, has suggested eating insects as a way of feeding those extra mouths, which may put the frankenmeat ick factor in perspective.
  5. (mathematics) Any of various objects multiplied together to form some whole.
    Hyponym: coefficient
    3 is a factor of 12, as are 2, 4 and 6.
    The factors of the Klein four-group are both cyclic of order 2.
    The formula adjusts for region and season by multiplying by a prescribed factor for each.
    • 1956, Arthur C. Clarke, The City and the Stars, page 38:
      The first thousand primes […] marched in order before him […] the complete sequence of all those numbers that possessed no factors except themselves and unity.
  6. (causal analysis) Influence; a phenomenon that affects the nature, the magnitude, and/or the timing of a consequence.
    The launch temperature was a factor of the Challenger disaster.
    • 2013 May-June, Charles T. Ambrose, “Alzheimer’s Disease”, in American Scientist, volume 101, number 3, page 200:
      Similar studies of rats have employed four different intracranial resorbable, slow sustained release systems— […]. Such a slow-release device containing angiogenic factors could be placed on the pia mater covering the cerebral cortex and tested in persons with senile dementia in long term studies.
  7. (economics) A resource used in the production of goods or services, a factor of production.
    • 2013 June 22, “T time”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8841, page 68:
      The ability to shift profits to low-tax countries by locating intellectual property in them […] is often assumed to be the preserve of high-tech companies. […] current tax rules make it easy for all sorts of firms to generate […] “stateless income”: profit subject to tax in a jurisdiction that is neither the location of the factors of production that generate the income nor where the parent firm is domiciled.
  8. (Scotland) A steward or bailiff of an estate.

doer, maker

integral part

mathematical sense

influence

economic resource

Other terms used in arithmetic operations:

Advanced hyperoperations: tetration, pentation, hexation

factor (third-person singular simple present factors, present participle factoring, simple past and past participle factored)

  1. (transitive) To find all the factors of (a number or other mathematical object) (the objects that divide it evenly).
  2. (transitive) To rewrite an expression as the product of its factors.
  3. (of a number or other mathematical object, intransitive) To be a product of other objects.
  4. (commercial, transitive) To sell a debt or debts to an agent (the factor) to collect.

to find all factors of a number

to rewrite as a product of factors

Borrowed from Latin factōrem.

factor m (plural factors)

  1. doer, agent (someone who does something)
  2. factor (element, important part)
  3. (biology, mathematics) factor
  4. (railroad) porter
  5. (business, commerce) agent (someone who buys and sells on someone else's behalf)

From Middle Dutch factoor, from Middle French facteur, from Latin factor (“a doer, maker, performer”), from factus (“done or made”), perfect passive participle of faciō (“do, make”).

factor m (plural factoren, diminutive factortje n)

  1. a factor, element
    Een belangrijke factor voor succes is hard werken.
    A key factor for success is hard work.
  2. (mathematics) factor
    In de wiskunde kun je een getal ontbinden in factoren om het te vereenvoudigen.
    In mathematics, you can decompose a number into factors to simplify it.
  3. (obsolete) business representative

Proto-Indo-European *dʰh₁kyéti

Proto-Italic *θakjō

Proto-Indo-European *-tōr

Latin factor

From faciō (“to do, make”) + -tor (masculine agent noun suffix).

factor m (genitive factōris); third declension

  1. One who or which does or makes something; doer, maker, performer, perpetrator, agent, player.
    Credo in unum Deum, Patrem omnipoténtem, factórem cæli et terræ ― I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of Heaven and earth.
  2. (sports) player, batsman

Third-declension noun.

factor m (plural factores)

  1. pre-reform spelling (used until 1943 in Brazil and 1990 in Portugal) of fator; still used where the agreement hasn’t come into effect and may occur as a sporadic misspelling

Borrowed from French facteur.

factor m (plural factori)

  1. factor
  2. postal worker, postman, mailman

Borrowed from Latin factor. Compare the inherited doublet hechor (cf. malhechor).

factor m (plural factores)

  1. factor

From facto (“a trufax”), from English fact, itself from Old French fact, from Latin factum. Compare with the Internet slang interjection facts used to express agreement.

factor m (plural factores)

  1. (Internet slang) an opinion considered a true fact; a trufax; a truth [from 2010s].
    Synonyms: hecho, (Internet slang) facto

As a direct object, it's usually accompanied by the verbs soltar, decir, tirar, all meaning spill (to express) in this context.