Definition of "factor"

factor

/ˈfæk.tə/

noun
plural factors
1. (obsolete) A doer, maker; a person who does things for another person or organization.
2. An agent or representative.
  Quotations
  My factor sends me word, a merchant's fled / That owes me for a hundred tun of wine.
  c. 1589–1590, Christopher Marlo[we], edited by Tho[mas] Heywood, The Famous Tragedy of the Rich Ievv of Malta. […], London: […] I[ohn] B[eale] for Nicholas Vavasour, […], published 1633, Act 2, [scene 1]
  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.
  1603, Michel de Montaigne, chapter 21, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes […], book II, London: […] Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […]
  What does he therefore, but resolvs to give over toyling, and to find himself out som factor, to whose care and credit he may commit the whole managing of his religious affairs; som Divine of note and estimation that must be.
  1644, John Milton, Areopagitica; a Speech of Mr. John Milton for the Liberty of Unlicenc’d Printing, to the Parlament of England, London: [s.n.]
  Motor factors — Good factors will stock all of the more important components which wear out relatively quickly.
  1985, Haynes Owners Workshop Manual, BMW
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.
  Quotations
  the material and dynamical factors of nutrition
  1864-1898, Herbert Spencer, Principles of Biology
5. (mathematics) Any of various objects multiplied together to form some whole.
  Quotations
  The first thousand primes […] marched in order before him […] the complete sequence of all those numbers that possessed no factors except themselves and unity.
  1956, Arthur C. Clarke, The City and the Stars, page 38
6. (causal analysis) Influence; a phenomenon that affects the nature, the magnitude, and/or the timing of a consequence.
  Quotations
  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.
  2013 May-June, Charles T. Ambrose, “Alzheimer’s Disease”, in American Scientist, volume 101, number 3, page 200
7. (economics) A resource used in the production of goods or services, a factor of production.
  Quotations
  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.
  2013 June 22, “T time”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8841, page 68
8. (Scotland) A steward or bailiff of an estate.
  Quotations
  the factor was so scrupulous, as to keep the whole thing from his master, the lord chamberlain
  1822, [Walter Scott], The Pirate. […], volumes (please specify |volume=I to III), Edinburgh: […] [James Ballantyne and Co.] for Archibald Constable and Co.; London: Hurst, Robinson, and Co.
verb
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. (of a number or other mathematical object, intransitive) To be a product of other objects.
3. (commercial, transitive) To sell a debt or debts to an agent (the factor) to collect.