factor
Syllables: fact·orUK/ˈfæk.tə//ˈfæk.təɹ/
factor noun: a doer, maker; a person who does things for another person or organization.
Noun
factor (plural factors)
- A doer, maker; a person who does things for another person or organization.
- The factor of the trading post bought the furs.
- An agent or representative; a reseller or distributor (sometimes with a private label); a consignee.
- My factor sends me word, a merchant's fled / That owes me for a hundred tun of wine.c. 1589–1590 (date written), Christopher Marlo[we], edited by Tho[mas] Heywood, The Famous Tragedy of the Rich Iew of Malta. […], London: […] I[ohn] B[eale] for Nicholas Vavasour, […], published...
- 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...1603, Michel de Montaigne, chapter 21, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes […], book II, London: […] Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], →OCLC
- A commission agent.
- A person or business organization that provides money for another's new business venture; one who finances another's business.
- A business organization that lends money on accounts receivable or buys and collects accounts receivable.
- 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.
- Any of various objects multiplied together to form some whole.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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
- A resource used in the production of goods or services, a factor of production.
- 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...2013 June 22, “T time”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8841, page 68
- A steward or bailiff of an estate.
- the factor was so scrupulous, as to keep the whole thing from his master, the lord chamberlain1822, [Walter Scott], The Pirate. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), Edinburgh: […] [James Ballantyne and Co.] for Archibald Constable and Co.; London: Hurst, Robinson, and Co., →OCLC
Verb
factor (third-person singular simple present factors, present participle factoring, simple past and past participle factored)
- To find all the factors of (a number or other mathematical object) (the objects that divide it evenly).
- To rewrite an expression as the product of its factors.
- To be a product of other objects.
- To sell a debt or debts to an agent (the factor) to collect.
Proper noun capitalized: Factor
Factor (plural Factors)
- A surname.
factor meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu
factor in Hindi
- integral part
- घटक ghaṭak
- doer, maker
- कारक kārak
- mathematical sense
- गुणक guṇak
- influence
- कारण kāraṇ
factor in Tamil
- காரணி
factor in Marathi
- factor
- अवयव avyav
factor in Urdu
- عامل, کارپرداز, عنصر
More languagesFewer languages
- factor in Bengali
- উৎপাদক utpadok
- factor in Malayalam
- ഘടകം
- factor in Kannada
- ಅಂಶ, ವಿಷಯ, ಸಂದರ್ಭ, ಪರಿಸ್ಥಿತಿ
- factor in Tagalog
- salik, kabuo, bungkagin
- factor in Arabic
- عَامِل ʕāmil
- factor in Malay
- faktor
- factor in Indonesian
- faktor
- factor in Thai
- ปัจจัย bpàt-jai
- factor in Vietnamese
- thừa số, yếu tố, nhân tố
- Sindhi
- حصو hiso, جزو juzvo, عنصر unsur, وسيلو vaseelo
Examples of factor in a sentence
- The formula adjusts for region and season by multiplying by a prescribed factor for each.
- Motor factors — Good factors will stock all of the more important components which wear out relatively quickly.1985, Haynes Owners Workshop Manual, BMW:
- 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.2013 August 6, John Michael McGrath, “The Frankenmeat of the Future”, in Hazlitt:
- 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:
Forms of factor
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | factors |
| alternative form (archaic) | factour |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | factors |
| present participle | factoring |
| past participle | factored |
| past | factored |
| Proper noun | |
| plural | Factors |
Origin of factor
Inherited from Middle English factour, from Middle French facteur, Anglo-Norman factour, and their etymon Latin factor (“a doer, maker, performer”), from factus (“done or made”), perfect passive participle of faciō (“do, make”).
Words formed from factor
- absolute uterine factor infertility
- absorption factor
- A factor
- aggravating factor
- antihemophilic factor A
- antihemophilic factor B
- anti-nuclear factor
- Bambi factor
- bifactor
- biofactor
- breakeven load factor
- bugger factor
- bus factor
- care factor
- care factor zero
- CDI factor
- Christmas factor
- citrovorum factor
- clotting factor
- coagulation factor
- cofactor
- contempt factor
- cord factor
- corn-factor
- correction factor
- counterfactor
- critical success factor
- crunch factor
- currency adjustment factor
- Darcy friction factor
- daylight factor
- death factor
- dissipation factor
- duh factor
- eigenfactor
- factorability
- factorable
- factorage
- factor analysis
- factoress
- factor graph
- factorial
- factorial experiment
- factorial table
- factor ideal
- factor II
- factorist
- factor IX
- factorization
- factorize
- factorless
- factor market
- factor ring
- factorship
- factor space
- factor through
- factor VII
- factor VIII
- factress
- Falklands factor
Phrases with factor
- Q factor
- x factor
- factor in
- Rh factor
- factor out
- fit factor
- gut factor
- ick factor
- wow factor
- form factor
- kata factor
- load factor
62 more phrasesFewer phrases
- plus factor
- pull factor
- push factor
- risk factor
- time factor
- warp factor
- yuck factor
- factor rings
- fudge factor
- Gamow factor
- latte factor
- match factor
- motor factor
- paper factor
- phase factor
- power factor
- prime factor
- space factor
- common factor
- factor graphs
- factor ideals
- factor spaces
- Gladue factor
- growth factor
- impact factor
- pucker factor
- Rhesus factor
- safety factor
- sleaze factor
- tissue factor
- factor markets
- Lorentz factor
- Revelle factor
- acentric factor
- factor analyses
- judicial factor
- limiting factor
- feel-good factor
- mitigating factor
- red factor canary
- rheumatoid factor
- Sommerfeld factor
- wind chill factor
- clotting factor II
- van 't Hoff factor
- nerve growth factor
- red factor canaries
- factor of production
- transcription factor
- animal protein factor
- highest common factor
- sun protection factor
- tumor necrosis factor
- von Willebrand factor
- greatest common factor
- tumour necrosis factor
- wife acceptance factor
- colony-stimulating factor
- vascular endothelial growth factor
- granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor
- granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor receptor
- granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor receptors
Words that rhyme with factor
- actor
- extractor
- tractor
- retractor
- protractor
- reactor
- abstracter
- abstractor
- attractor
- compacter
- exactor
- impactor
16 more rhymesFewer rhymes
Questions about factor
- What does factor mean?
- Factor means a doer, maker; a person who does things for another person or organization.
- What is factor in Hindi?
- Factor in Hindi is घटक (ghaṭak), कारक (kārak), गुणक (guṇak). See Factor meaning in Hindi.
- How do you use factor in a sentence?
- The formula adjusts for region and season by multiplying by a prescribed factor for each.
- What part of speech is factor?
- Factor can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
- How do you pronounce factor?
- Factor is pronounced /ˈfæk.tə/ (UK).
- What is the plural of factor?
- The plural of factor is factors.
Words near factor in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: factor (page history and authors); Factor (page history and authors); factor (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); अवयव (Marathi) (page history and authors); factor (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); উৎপাদক (Bengali) (page history and authors); factor (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); factor (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-factor.ogg.
Cite this entry: “factor.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/factor. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.