Webster
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Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary · 1913

Factor

Fac′tor (făk′tẽr), n. [L. factor a doer: cf. F. facteur a factor. See Fact.] 1. (Law) One who transacts business for another; an agent; a substitute; especially, a mercantile agent who buys and sells goods and transacts business for others in commission; a commission merchant or consignee. He may be a home factor or a foreign factor. He may buy and sell in his own name, and he is intrusted with the possession and control of the goods; and in these respects he differs from a broker. Story. Wharton.

My factor sends me word, a merchant's fled That owes me for a hundred tun of wine. Marlowe.

2. A steward or bailiff of an estate. [Scot.] Sir W. Scott.

3. (Math.) One of the elements or quantities which, when multiplied together, form a product.

4. One of the elements, circumstances, or influences which contribute to produce a result; a constituent.

The materal and dynamical factors of nutrition. H. Spencer.

Fac′tor, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Factored (-t?rd); p. pr. & vb. n. Factoring.] (Mach.) To resolve (a quantity) into its factors.

Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Noah Porter, editor (Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913). Public domain. Text as transcribed by MICRA, Inc., from Project Gutenberg. Changed for Deep Dive Bible: Greek, which our source spelled in Latin letters, set in Greek letters; entries of one spelling merged into one article; Greek words our source left out (shown as “?”), read from the 1898 printing, from the same plates (the Library of Congress’s copy), where the place could be found with certainty. Of the others, 1,362 (a word or a single letter each) were inferred by AI from the context by the dictionary’s own rules and are marked with a wavy underline (tap or point at one to see the note); the rest, which could not be inferred with confidence, are left as “?”.