different between composition vs factor

English

Etymology

From Middle English composicioun, from Old French composicion, from Latin compositi?, compositi?nem.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /?k?mp??z???n/

Noun

composition (countable and uncountable, plural compositions)

1. The act of putting together; assembly.
2. A mixture or compound; the result of composing. [from 16th c.]
3. The proportion of different parts to make a whole. [from 14th c.]
   • 1611, King James Version of the Bible, Exodus 30:37,^[1]

     And as for the perfume which thou shalt make, ye shall not make to yourselves according to the composition thereof: it shall be unto thee holy for the Lord.

4. The general makeup of a thing or person. [from 14th c.]
   • c. 1595, William Shakespeare, Richard II, Act II, Scene 1,^[2]

     John of Gaunt. O how that name befits my composition!

     Old Gaunt indeed, and gaunt in being old:

     Within me grief hath kept a tedious fast;

     And who abstains from meat that is not gaunt?

   • 1932, Frank Richards, The Magnet - Bunter's Night Out

     It seemed that the milk of human kindness had not been left out of his composition.

5. (obsolete) An agreement or treaty used to settle differences; later especially, an agreement to stop hostilities; a truce. [14th-19th c.]
   • 1604, William Shakespeare, Measure for Measure, Act 1, Scene 2, Lines 1-3

     If the Duke, with the other dukes, come not to composition with the king of Hungary, why then all the dukes fall upon the king.

   • c. 1605, William Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act I, Scene 2,^[3]

     That now

     Sweno, the Norways’ king, craves composition:

     Nor would we deign him burial of his men

     Till he disbursed at Saint Colme’s inch

     Ten thousand dollars to our general use.

   • 1630, John Smith, True travels, in Kupperman 1988, p.50:

     with an incredible courage they advanced to the push of the Pike with the defendants, that with the like courage repulsed […], that the Turks retired and fled into the Castle, from whence by a flag of truce they desired composition.

   • 1754, David Hume, The History of England, London: T. Cadell, 1773, Volume I, p. 8,^[4]

     […] the Britons, by rendering the war thus bloody, seemed determined to cut off all hopes of peace or composition with the enemy.

6. (obsolete) A payment of money in order to clear a liability or obligation; a settling or fine. [16th-19th c.]
   • c. 1602, William Shakespeare, All’s Well That Ends Well, Act IV, Scene 3,^[5]

     He hath perverted a young gentlewoman here in Florence, of a most chaste renown; and this night he fleshes his will in the spoil of her honour: he hath given her his monumental ring, and thinks himself made in the unchaste composition.

   • 1688, Parliament of England, Toleration Act 1688, section 3:

     That all and every person and persons already convicted or prosecuted in order to conviction of recusancy […] shall be thenceforth exempted and discharged from all the penalties, seizures, forfeitures, judgments, and executions, incurred by force of any of the aforesaid Statutes, without any composition, fee, or further charge whatsoever.

   • 1745, Edward Young, Night-Thoughts, II:

     Insidious death! should his strong hand arrest, / No composition sets the prisoner free.

7. (law) an agreement or compromise by which a creditor or group of creditors accepts partial payment from a debtor.
8. An essay. [from 16th c.]
9. (linguistics) The formation of compound words from separate words. [from 16th c.]
10. A work of music, literature or art. [from 17th c.]
    • 1818, Jane Austen, A letter dated 8 September 1818:

      […] and how good Mrs. West could have written such books and collected so many hard words, with all her family cares, is still more a matter of astonishment. Composition seems to me impossible with a head full of joints of mutton and doses of rhubarb.

11. (printing) Typesetting. [from 19th c.]
12. (mathematics) Applying a function to the result of another.
13. (physics) The compounding of two velocities or forces into a single equivalent velocity or force.
14. (obsolete) Consistency; accord; congruity.
    • c. 1604, William Shakespeare, Othello, Act I, Scene 3,^[6]

      There is no composition in these news

      That gives them credit.

15. Synthesis as opposed to analysis.

    • The investigation of difficult things by the method of analysis ought ever to precede the method of composition.

16. (painting, photography) The arrangement and flow of elements in a picture.
17. (object-oriented programming) Way to combine simple objects or data types into more complex ones.

Synonyms

• (general makeup of a thing or person): configuration, constitution; see also Thesaurus:composition
• (mixture or compound): blend, melange; see also Thesaurus:mixture
• (work of music, literature or art): See also Thesaurus:musical composition

Derived terms

• composition algebra
• composition book, composition notebook
• composition fee
• letter of composition

Related terms

• composite
• compositing
• compositionism
• compositionist

Translations

Anagrams

• monisotopic

French

Etymology

From Old French composicion, borrowed from Latin compositi?, compositi?nem.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /k??.po.zi.sj??/

Noun

composition f (plural compositions)

1. composition, makeup
2. essay
3. composition, work of art
4. (linguistics) composition, formation of compound words
5. (printing) composition, typesetting
6. (sports) lineup
7. (object-oriented programming) composition

Synonyms

• (essay): essai, dissertation, rédaction
• (work of art): œuvre

Related terms

• composer
• compositeur

Descendants

• ? Turkish: kompozisyon

References

• “composition” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

Middle French

Etymology

From Old French composicion.

Noun

composition f (plural compositions)

1. agreement; accord; pact

Descendants

• French: composition

English

Alternative forms

• factour (archaic)

Etymology

From Middle French facteur, from Latin factor (“a doer, maker, performer”), from factus (“done or made”), perfect passive participle of faci? (“do, make”).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?fækt?/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /?fækt?/
• Hyphenation: fact?or
• Rhymes: -ækt?(?)

Noun

factor (plural factors)

1. (obsolete) A doer, maker; a person who does things for another person or organization.

2. (now rare) An agent or representative.

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

   • 1644, John Milton, Aeropagitica:

     What does he therefore, but resolvs to give over toyling, and to find himself out som factor, to whose care and credit he may commit the whole managing of his religious affairs; som Divine of note and estimation that must be.

   • 1985 Haynes Owners Workshop Manual, BMW

     Motor factors — Good factors will stock all of the more important components which wear out relatively quickly.

3. (law)
   1. A commission agent.
   2. A person or business organization that provides money for another's new business venture; one who finances another's business.
   3. A business organization that lends money on accounts receivable or buys and collects accounts receivable.
5. One of the elements, circumstances, or influences which contribute to produce a result.
   • 1863, Herbert Spencer, The Principles of Biology

     the material and dynamical factors of nutrition

6. (mathematics) Any of various objects multiplied together to form some whole.
   • 1956, Arthur C. Clarke, The City and the Stars, p.38:

     The first thousand primes […] marched in order before him […] the complete sequence of all those numbers that possessed no factors except themselves and unity.

7. (causal analysis) Influence; a phenomenon that affects the nature, the magnitude, and/or the timing of a consequence.
8. (economics) A resource used in the production of goods or services, a factor of production.
9. (Scotland) A steward or bailiff of an estate.

Hyponyms

Derived terms

Related terms

Translations

See also

• addition, summation: (augend) + (addend) = (summand) + (summand) = (sum, total)
• subtraction: (minuend) ? (subtrahend) = (difference)
• multiplication: (multiplier) × (multiplicand) = (factor) × (factor) = (product)
• division: (dividend) ÷ (divisor) = (quotient), remainder left over if divisor does not divide dividend

Verb

factor (third-person singular simple present factors, present participle factoring, simple past and past participle factored)

1. (transitive) To find all the factors of (a number or other mathematical object) (the objects that divide it evenly).
2. (of a number or other mathematical object, intransitive) To be a product of other objects.
3. (commercial, transitive) To sell a debt or debts to an agent (the factor) to collect.

Derived terms

• factor in
• factor out
• refactor

Translations

See also

• addition, summation: (augend) + (addend) = (summand) × (summand) = (sum, total)
• subtraction: (minuend) ? (subtrahend) = (difference)
• multiplication: (multiplier) × (multiplicand) = (factor) × (factor) = (product)
• division: (dividend) ÷ (divisor) = (quotient), remainder left over if divisor does not divide dividend

Further reading

• factor in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• factor in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.

Catalan

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin factor.

Noun

factor m (plural factors)

1. factor (integral part)

Further reading

• “factor” in Diccionari de la llengua catalana, segona edició, Institut d’Estudis Catalans.

Dutch

Etymology

From Middle Dutch factoor, from Middle French facteur, from Latin factor (“a doer, maker, performer”), from factus (“done or made”), perfect passive participle of faci? (“do, make”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?f?k.t?r/
• Hyphenation: fac?tor

Noun

factor m (plural factoren, diminutive factortje n)

1. a factor, element
2. (mathematics) factor
3. (obsolete) business representative

Descendants

• Afrikaans: faktor
• ? West Frisian: faktor

Latin

Etymology

From faci? (“to do, make”) +? -tor (masculine agent noun suffix).

Pronunciation

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /?fak.tor/, [?fäkt??r]
• (Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /?fak.tor/, [?f?kt??r]

Noun

factor m (genitive fact?ris); third declension

1. One who or which does or makes something; doer, maker, performer, perpetrator, agent, player.
2. (sports) player, batsman

Declension

Third-declension noun.

Related terms

• factus
• factura

Descendants

References

• factor in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• factor in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition, 1883–1887)
• factor in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré Latin-Français, Hachette
• factor in Harry Thurston Peck, editor (1898) Harper's Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, New York: Harper & Brothers
• factor in William Smith et al., editor (1890) A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, London: William Wayte. G. E. Marindin

Portuguese

Noun

factor m (plural factores)

1. Superseded spelling of fator. (superseded in Brazil by the 1943 spelling reform and by the Orthographic Agreement of 1990 elsewhere. Still used in countries where the agreement hasn’t come into effect and as an alternative spelling in Portugal.)

Romanian

Etymology

From French facteur

Noun

factor m (plural factori)

1. factor
2. postal worker, postman, mailman

Declension

Spanish

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin factor. Compare the inherited doublet hechor (cf. malhechor).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /fa??to?/, [fa???t?o?]
• Rhymes: -o?

Noun

factor m (plural factores)

1. factor

Derived terms

• factor productivo

Related terms

• hacer