factor

Pronunciation

• IPA: UK /ˈfæk.tə/, US /ˈfæk.tɚ/^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English factour (“agent, representative”),^[2][3] borrowed from Middle French facteur (“agent, representative”) (Old French faitor “doer, author, creator”),^[4][2] from Latin factor (“doer, maker, performer”), in Medieval Latin “agent”,^[4] an agent noun from the past participle stem of facere (“to do”),^[4][2] from Proto-Indo-European *dhe- (“to set, put”).^[4] The verb is from the noun.^[4][2] It is related to fact, factory and factotum.^[5][2]

Earliest recorded meaning

A commercial agent, one who buys or sells for another: 1432 in Barnhart,^[2] the early 15th century in Etymonline.^[4] The New Oxford gives “doer, perpetrator” and the Scots “agent” as the late Middle English senses.^[6]

Semantic evolution

In commerce it was especially a commission merchant (1491),^[4][7] and a servant of the third class in the East India Company (1600).^[7] In Scotland a factor is the steward of a landed estate, who collects rents and lets land (1561).^[7][8] The mathematical sense, one of the quantities multiplied together, is from the 1670s,^[4] and it led to “a circumstance producing a result”, attested in Coleridge's Lay Sermons (1816).^[4][2] The verb “to act as an agent” is from the 1610s,^[4][2] and “to resolve into factors” from 1837 in Etymonline^[4] and 1848 in Barnhart, as American English.^[2] To factor in, to include as a factor, is a later use.^[9][10] Johnson defined it as “an agent for another”.^[11]

Timeline

• 1432 – an agent.^[2]
• 1491 – a mercantile agent.^[7]
• 1561 – a Scottish estate steward.^[7]
• 1610s – verb, to act as agent.^[4]
• 1670s – in mathematics.^[4]
• 1816 – a contributing circumstance.^[4][2]
• 1837 – to resolve into factors.^[4]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. Something that contributes to a result.
2. One who acts for another; an agent.
3. A person or firm that buys accounts receivable or lends money on them.
4. In mathematics, one of two or more quantities that divide a given quantity without a remainder.
5. (Scotland) The steward of an estate.

Verb

1. To find the factors of a number or expression.
2. To include or exclude as a factor: factor in inflation.

Word family

• factorable
• factorship
• factorability

Related words

• fact
• faction
• factory
• fashion
• factotum
• manufacture
• benefactor
• feat

References

1. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
3. ^ Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ Pearsall, Judy, ed. (1998), The New Oxford Dictionary of English, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b c d e Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
9. ^ Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2003), 11th ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
10. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
11. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.