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Factor vs Scale - What's the difference?

factor | scale |

In obsolete|lang=en terms the difference between factor and scale

is that factor is (obsolete) a doer, maker; a person who does things for another person or organization while scale is (obsolete) a ladder; a series of steps; a means of ascending.

In lang=en terms the difference between factor and scale

is that factor is to find all the factors of (a number or other mathematical object) (the objects that divide it evenly) while scale is to clean, as the inside of a cannon, by the explosion of a small quantity of powder.

As nouns the difference between factor and scale

is that factor is (obsolete) a doer, maker; a person who does things for another person or organization while scale is (obsolete) a ladder; a series of steps; a means of ascending or scale can be part of an overlapping arrangement of many small, flat and hard pieces of keratin covering the skin of an animal, particularly a fish or reptile or scale can be a device to measure mass or weight.

As verbs the difference between factor and scale

is that factor is to find all the factors of (a number or other mathematical object) (the objects that divide it evenly) while scale is to change the size of something whilst maintaining proportion; especially to change a process in order to produce much larger amounts of the final product or scale can be to remove the scales of.

factor

English

(wikipedia factor)

Alternative forms

* factour (archaic)

Noun

(en noun)
  • (obsolete) A doer, maker; a person who does things for another person or organization.
  • An agent or representative.
  • * (Christopher Marlowe)
  • My factor sends me word, a merchant's fled / That owes me for a hundred tun of wine.
  • *, II.21:
  • *:And let such as will number the Kings of Castile and Portugall amongst the warlike and magnanimous conquerors, seeke for some other adherent then my selfe, forsomuch as twelve hundred leagues from their idle residence they have made themselves masters of both Indias, onely by the conduct and direction of their factors , of whom it would be knowne whether they durst but goe and enjoy them in person.
  • * 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.
  • (legal)
  • # A commission agent.
  • # A person or business organization that provides money for another's new business venture; one who finances another's business.
  • # A business organization that lends money on accounts receivable or buys and collects accounts receivable.
  • One of the elements, circumstances, or influences which contribute to produce a result.
  • * (Herbert Spencer)
  • the material and dynamical factors of nutrition
  • (mathematics) Any of various objects multiplied together to form some whole.
  • * 1956 , , (The City and the Stars) , p.38:
  • The first thousand primesthe complete sequence of all those numbers that possessed no factors except themselves and unity.
  • (root cause analysis) Influence; a phenomenon that affects the nature, the magnitude, and/or the timing of a consequence.
  • * {{quote-magazine, year=2013, month=May-June, author= Charles T. Ambrose
  • , title= Alzheimer’s Disease , volume=101, issue=3, page=200, magazine=(American Scientist) , passage=Similar studies of rats have employed four different intracranial resorbable, slow sustained release systems— […]. Such a slow-release device containing angiogenic factors could be placed on the pia mater covering the cerebral cortex and tested in persons with senile dementia in long term studies.}}
  • (economics) A resource used in the production of goods or services, a factor of production.
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-22, volume=407, issue=8841, page=68, magazine=(The Economist)
  • , title= T time , passage=The ability to shift profits to low-tax countries by locating intellectual property in them
  • (Scotland) A steward or bailiff of an estate.
  • (Sir Walter Scott)

    Derived terms

    * corn-factor * factorial * factor market * factor of production * factorize * factorization * form factor * pull factor * push factor

    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

    (en verb)
  • To find all the factors of (a number or other mathematical object) (the objects that divide it evenly).
  • (of a number or other mathematical object) To be a product of other objects.
  • Derived terms

    * factor in * factor out * refactor

    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

    scale

    English

    (wikipedia scale) {, style="float: right; clear:right;" , , }

    Etymology 1

    From (etyl) ; see scan, ascend, descend, etc.

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (obsolete) A ladder; a series of steps; a means of ascending.
  • An ordered numerical sequence used for measurement.
  • Please rate your experience on a scale from 1 to 10.
  • Size; scope.
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2012-01
  • , author=Robert L. Dorit , title=Rereading Darwin , volume=100, issue=1, page=23 , magazine= citation , passage=We live our lives in three dimensions for our threescore and ten allotted years. Yet every branch of contemporary science, from statistics to cosmology, alludes to processes that operate on scales outside of human experience: the millisecond and the nanometer, the eon and the light-year.}}
    The Holocaust was insanity on an enormous scale .
    There are some who question the scale of our ambitions.
  • The ratio of depicted distance to actual distance.
  • This map uses a scale of 1:10.
  • A line or bar associated with a drawing, used to indicate measurement when the image has been magnified or reduced
  • *
  • Even though precision can be carried to an extreme, the scales which now are drawn in (and usually connected to an appropriate figure by an arrow) will allow derivation of meaningful measurements.
  • A means of assigning a magnitude.
  • The magnitude of an earthquake is measured on the open-ended Richter scale .
  • (music) A series of notes spanning an octave, tritave, or pseudo-octave, used to make melodies.
  • A mathematical base for a numeral system.
  • the decimal scale'''; the binary '''scale
  • Gradation; succession of ascending and descending steps and degrees; progressive series; scheme of comparative rank or order.
  • * Milton
  • There is a certain scale of duties which for want of studying in right order, all the world is in confusion.
  • * {{quote-news, year=2012
  • , date=May 13 , author=Phil McNulty , title=Man City 3-2 QPR , work=BBC Sport citation , page= , passage=City's players and supporters travelled from one end of the emotional scale to the other in those vital seconds, providing a truly remarkable piece of football theatre and the most dramatic conclusion to a season in Premier League history.}}
    Derived terms
    * Celsius scale * Fahrenheit scale * Kelvin scale * major scale * microscale * milliscale * minor scale * modal scale * scale invariance * scale model * Richter scale * to scale * wage scale * widescale
    Hyponyms
    * (music) tonic, supertonic, mediant, subdominant, dominant, submediant, leading note, octave interval * (geography) cartographic ratio, resolution, grain, support, focus, extent, range, size
    See also
    * degree * ordinal variable

    Verb

    (scal)
  • To change the size of something whilst maintaining proportion; especially to change a process in order to produce much larger amounts of the final product.
  • We should scale that up by a factor of 10.
  • To climb to the top of.
  • Hilary and Norgay were the first known to have scaled Everest.
  • * 1918 , (Edgar Rice Burroughs), Chapter IX
  • At last I came to the great barrier-cliffs; and after three days of mad effort--of maniacal effort--I scaled' them. I built crude ladders; I wedged sticks in narrow fissures; I chopped toe-holds and finger-holds with my long knife; but at last I ' scaled them. Near the summit I came upon a huge cavern.
  • (computing) To tolerate significant increases in throughput or other potentially limiting factors.
  • That architecture won't scale to real-world environments.
  • To weigh, measure or grade according to a scale or system.
  • * Shakespeare
  • Scaling his present bearing with his past.

    Etymology 2

    From (etyl) scale, from (etyl) escale, from (etyl) or another (etyl) source skala /, (etyl) scaglia.

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • Part of an overlapping arrangement of many small, flat and hard pieces of keratin covering the skin of an animal, particularly a fish or reptile.
  • * Milton
  • Fish that, with their fins and shining scales , / Glide under the green wave.
  • A small piece of pigmented chitin, many of which coat the wings of a butterfly or moth to give them their color.
  • A flake of skin of an animal afflicted with dermatitis.
  • A pine nut of a pinecone.
  • The flaky material sloughed off heated metal.
  • Scale mail (as opposed to chain mail).
  • Limescale
  • A scale insect
  • The thin metallic side plate of the handle of a pocketknife.
  • Derived terms
    * antiscalant

    Verb

    (scal)
  • To remove the scales of.
  • Please scale that fish for dinner.
  • To become scaly; to produce or develop scales.
  • The dry weather is making my skin scale .
  • To strip or clear of scale; to descale.
  • to scale the inside of a boiler
  • To take off in thin layers or scales, as tartar from the teeth; to pare off, as a surface.
  • * T. Burnet
  • if all the mountains were scaled , and the earth made even
  • To separate and come off in thin layers or laminae.
  • Some sandstone scales by exposure.
  • * Francis Bacon
  • Those that cast their shell are the lobster and crab; the old skins are found, but the old shells never; so it is likely that they scale off.
  • (UK, Scotland, dialect) To scatter; to spread.
  • To clean, as the inside of a cannon, by the explosion of a small quantity of powder.
  • (Totten)

    Etymology 3

    From (etyl) . Cognate with , as in Etymology 2.

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A device to measure mass or weight.
  • After the long, lazy winter I was afraid to get on the scale .
  • Either of the pans, trays, or dishes of a balance or scales.
  • Usage notes
    * The noun is often used in the plural to denote a single device (originally a pair of scales had two pans).