multifactorial

English

Etymology

From multi- +‎ factorial.

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -ɔːɹiəl

Adjective

multifactorial (not comparable)

1. Involving, or controlled by multiple factors.
   • 1989 August 19, Bob Lederer, “Hiding Behind HIV”, in Gay Community News, volume 17, number 6, page 8:

     […] a pattern in medical research on infectious and degenerative diseases in the United States. That pattern shows three main built-in biases: 1) towards a single-agent theory of disease, as opposed to a multi-factorial analysis; 2) […]

   • 2021 February 2, Katharine Murphy, The Guardian‎^[1]:

     One of the under-reported dynamics during the coronavirus pandemic has been the collapse of One Nation’s vote. The reasons for this are likely multi-factorial.

2. (genetics, of a trait) Involving multiple genetic or environmental factors.

Noun

multifactorial (plural multifactorials)

1. (mathematics) A generalization of a factorial in which each element to be multiplied differs from the next by an integer (e.g. n(n-3)(n-6)(n-9)...).

See also

• monofactorial

Spanish

Adjective

multifactorial m or f (masculine and feminine plural multifactoriales)

1. multifactorial

Further reading

• “multifactorial”, in Diccionario de la lengua española [Dictionary of the Spanish Language] (in Spanish), online version 23.8, Royal Spanish Academy [Spanish: Real Academia Española], 2024 December 10