All 14 Uses of

factor
in
The Magic Mountain

There were counteracting and corrective psychic factors, wholesome and ordering instincts—one might almost call them bourgeois—under whose compensating and modifying effects perverse components were fused to a consistent and useful whole; and this was, all in all, a common and welcome process, whose consequences, however (as Dr. Krokowski rather superciliously remarked), were of no importance to the physician or thinker.†
Chpt 4.6

factors = things that affect a result or outcome

The director, then, was not an independent man, but merely an agent, a functionary, an associate of those higher powers—though, of course, the highest and supreme associate here, the soul of the place, the determining factor for the whole organization, including the management office.†
Chpt 4.7

factor = thing that affects a result or outcome

Organic factors are always secondary.†
Chpt 5.1

factors = things that affect a result or outcome

And that was what terrified him, in the same way he had been terrified that day down in the examination room, when he had rapidly shifted his searching glance from Joachim's naked upper torso to his eyes—the difference being that it was pity and worry that had been the source of his terror then, whereas other factors were involved here.†
Chpt 5.2

These were the kinds of suits pending among the residents of the Berg-hof, especially among its feverish youth; and apparently one major factor in all of them was the passageway along the balconies—where one slipped past glass partitions and kept to the railing.†
Chpt 5.5 *

factor = thing that affects a result or outcome

Those are all reactions, you see, But since all reactions and reflexes, by their very nature, serve some purpose, we physiologists are almost forced to conclude that such secondary phenomena due to psychological factors are actually meant to protect the body, are defense mechanisms, much like goose bumps.†
Chpt 5.6

factors = things that affect a result or outcome

Such structural factors forced one to assume that a single cell was no different from the higher life-form of which it was a building block, that it, too, was a higher organism, yet another composite made up of discrete units of life, individual living entities.†
Chpt 5.7

Probably the most significant factor, however, was that without question the old man had been the central figure in the family, its picturesque personality.†
Chpt 2.1

He had tradition behind him, his was a good, old name, and it was almost inevitable that someday he would have to be reckoned with as a political factor.†
Chpt 2.2

He had not returned to his former life, then, but had stayed on here—in part, to be sure, because he did not want to leave her grave behind; but the deciding, and less sentimental, factor had probably been that he had become slightly infected himself and, in his own professional opinion, actually belonged here.†
Chpt 4.7

The Italian's remarks were truly the sort that, if Hans Castorp had heard them down in the plains seven weeks before, would have been mere noise; but his stay up here had made his mind receptive for them— receptive in terms of intellectual understanding, though not necessarily in terms of sympathy, which perhaps is the more telling factor.†
Chpt 5.3

The point was a total cure, totality was the decisive factor, and Behrens had recently saddled him with another six months.†
Chpt 6.5

The decisive factor in the humanist's view of the world was that God and the Devil were two different persons or principles and that "life" was the bone of contention between them— very much after the medieval model, by the way.†
Chpt 6.6

A massive deficit in sunlight—a significant factor in the cure—was noted; without those helpful rays, recuperation was doubtless retarded.†
Chpt 6.7

Definitions:

(1) (factor as in: It was the deciding factor.)
something that affects a result or outcome

You also may encounter x-factor or x factor--meaning "the most important thing that influences a result or outcome."
(2) (factor as in: factor it into your thinking)
include consideration of
(3) (meaning too rare to warrant focus)
meaning too rare to warrant focus:

See a comprehensive dictionary for other meanings. Less common meanings include one that has to do with units of measurement. More specialized meanings are used in fields including mathematics, business, finance, biology, and grammar.