What Is Factoring (Algebra)?
Factoring rewrites an algebraic expression as a product of two or more simpler expressions, the reverse of expanding (multiplying) them back out. For quadratics, factoring means finding two binomials that multiply together to give the original expression, which is often the fastest way to solve the equation by setting each factor equal to zero.
Example
x² − 5x + 6 factors into (x − 2)(x − 3), since expanding (x − 2)(x − 3) gives back x² − 5x + 6. Setting each factor to 0 gives the solutions x = 2 and x = 3.