different between factor vs agency

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

English

Etymology

From Medieval Latin agentia, from Latin ag?ns (present participle of agere (“to act”)), agentis (cognate with French agence, see also agent).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?e?.d??n.si/

Noun

agency (countable and uncountable, plural agencies)

1. The capacity, condition, or state of acting or of exerting power.

   Synonyms: action, activity, operation

   • 1695, John Woodward, An Essay toward a Natural History of the Earth and Terrestrial Bodies, especially Minerals, &c

     A few advances there are in the following papers tending to assert the superintendence and agency of Providence in the natural world.

2. (sociology, philosophy, psychology) The capacity of individuals to act independently and to make their own free choices.

   Coordinate terms: free will, structure

   • 2001, Todd McGowan, The Feminine "No!", SUNY Press (?ISBN), page 105:

     Formally, capitalism performs its fundamental gesture—reappropriation without transformation. This bears on the question of subjective agency because this “reappropriation without transformation” is exactly what agency seeks to avoid; such a process indicates, in fact, that one's agency has failed, that one really had no agency in the first place.

   • 2012, Edmund V. Sullivan, A Critical Psychology, Springer Science & Business Media (?ISBN), page 75:

     Strictly speaking, at the level of personal agency one could say that power is a condition where one is “enabled.” I would contend that this is a condition of personal agency.

   • 2013, Andy Clark, Julian Kiverstein, Tillmann Vierkant, Decomposing the Will, Oxford University Press (?ISBN), page 112:

     The feeling of being in control of one's body should involve the sense of body-ownership, plus an additional sense of agency.

3. A medium through which power is exerted or an end is achieved.

   Synonyms: instrumentality, means

4. The office or function of an agent; also, the relationship between a principal and that person's agent.

5. An establishment engaged in doing business for another; also, the place of business or the district of such an agency.

   Synonym: management

   Hyponyms: advertising agency, dating agency, employment agency, escort agency, introduction agency, modelling agency, news agency, press agency, relief agency, syndication agency, travel agency

   • 2012, Simon Toms, The Impact of the UK Temporary Employment Industry in Assisting Agency Workers since the Year 2000, Cambridge Scholars Publishing (?ISBN), page 277:

     As an employment agency you have a responsibility to supply work to the individual agency worker, as well as a service to the client.

6. A department or other administrative unit of a government; also, the office or headquarters of, or the district administered by such unit of government.

   Hyponyms: antitrust agency, intelligence agency, space agency

Related terms

• act
• action
• agent

Translations

Further reading

• agency in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• agency on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• agency (sociology) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• agency (philosophy) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• law of agency on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• moral agency on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• structure and agency on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Anagrams

• Cagney, gynæc-