Definify.com
Webster 1913 Edition
Factor
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
That owes me for a hundred tun of wine.
factor
sends me word, a merchant’s fledThat 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.
The materal and dynamical
factors
of nutrition. H. Spencer.
Fac′tor
,Verb.
T.
[
imp. & p. p.
Factored
(-tĕrd)
; p. pr. & vb. n.
Factoring
.] (Mach.)
To resolve (a quantity) into its factors.
Webster 1828 Edition
Factor
FAC'TOR
,Noun.
1.
In commerce, an agent employed by merchants, residing in other places, to buy and sell, and to negotiate bills of exchange, or to transact other business on their account.2.
an agent; a substitute.3.
In arithmetic, the multiplier and multiplicand, from the multiplication of which proceeds the product.