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say it: FAK-tur
factor is a noun and verb meaning "anything that contributes causally to a result". It carries 10 recorded senses.
anything that contributes causally to a result
“a number of factors determined the outcome”
an abstract part of something
“jealousy was a component of his character”
“two constituents of a musical composition are melody and harmony”
“the grammatical elements of a sentence”
“a key factor in her success”
“humor: an effective ingredient of a speech”
one of two or more integers that can be exactly divided into another integer
“what are the 4 factors of 6?”
a businessman who buys or sells for another in exchange for a commission
any of the numbers (or symbols) that form a product when multiplied together
an independent variable in statistics
(genetics) a segment of DNA that is involved in producing a polypeptide chain; it can include regions preceding and following the coding DNA as well as introns between the exons; it is considered a unit of heredity
“genes were formerly called factors”
genetics · molecular biology
resolve into factors
“a quantum computer can factor the number 15”
arithmetic
consider as relevant when making a decision
“You must factor in the recent developments”
Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.
Definitions, synonyms and semantic relations for factor come from Princeton University’s WordNet. The pronunciation comes from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. Commonness is measured against a corpus of everyday English. Full sources and licences.