Meaning of factor In English

• 0 a fact or situation that influences the result of something:

  • People's voting habits are influenced by political, social and economic factors.

  • Heavy snow was a contributing factor in the accident.

  • Price will be a major/crucial factor in the success of this new product.

  • The economy is regarded as the decisive/key factor in the outcome of the election.

  • informal The movie's success is largely due to its feel-good factor (= its ability to make people feel happy).

• 1 in mathematics, any whole number that is produced when you divide a larger number by another whole number:

  • Two, three, four and six are all factors of twelve.

  • a wind chill factor of -20

  • UK a factor 20 suntan cream

  • Cases of leukaemia in the area near the nuclear reactor have risen by a factor of four.

• 2 a fact or situation that influences a result:

  • Economic factors had a lot to do with their decision to sell the company.

• 3 a number or variable (= letter or symbol) that is being multiplied in a product (= result of multiplying):

  • In 6×3=18, 6 and 3 are factors of the product 18.

• 4 one of several things that affects or influences a situation:

  • Increasing use of online newspapers was definitely a contributing factor to the company's collapse.

  • a key/significant/major factor

  • a critical/crucial factor

  • a deciding/decisive factor

• 5 a business that buys the right to collect debts for another company and charges for collecting them:

  • Using a factor can be a good way of getting better cashflow.

• 6 the amount that a number is multiplied or divided by:

  • a factor of 3/10/75, etc. You should reduce your final figures by a factor of three.

• 7 a company or person that sells goods produced by another company using their own name, usually for payment

• 8 something special that a product, idea, person, etc. has that makes them successful or makes people notice them:

  • What's missing from this organization is the leadership factor.

  • Her latest fashion collection certainly has the wow factor.

• 9 to sell the right to collect payments and debts owed to your company or organization to another business:

  • How many of their operations are factored?

  • Factoring is just one way of raising capital in the short term.