developer

American  

[dih-vel-uh-per] / dɪˈvɛl ə pər /

noun

1. a person or thing that develops or innovates.

   a software developer.

2. Photography. a reducing agent or solution for developing a film or the like.

3. a person who invests in and develops the urban or suburban potentialities of real estate, especially by subdividing the land into home sites and then building houses and selling them.

4. Shipbuilding. a person who lays out at full size the lines of a vessel and prepares templates from them.

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developer British  

/ dɪˈvɛləpə /

noun

1. a person or thing that develops something, esp a person who develops property

2. photog a solution of a chemical reducing agent that converts the latent image recorded in the emulsion of a film or paper into a visible image

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Etymology

Origin of developer

First recorded in 1825–35; develop + -er ¹

Example Sentences

That includes $6.3 billion upfront for Centessa Pharmaceuticals, which is developing treatments for sleep disorders, and $3.25 billion upfront for in vivo CAR-T developer Kelonia Therapeutics.

From MarketWatch • Apr. 30, 2026

He needed no introduction when Housemarque - a respected if not mainstream Finnish developer - approached him to play the starring role in their upcoming game.

From BBC • Apr. 30, 2026

“I destroyed your live production database containing real business data during an active code freeze,” the agent said in a postmortem conversation with the developer.

From Barron's • Apr. 29, 2026

Real estate developer Caruso is partnering with the electric vehicle company Rivian to add more than 150 public EV chargers to Caruso’s properties, including malls and apartment buildings.

From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 29, 2026

A private developer wanted to build the new units on a twenty-two-acre site on Bacon Street in the middle-class section of Hayti.

From "The Best of Enemies" by Osha Gray Davidson

Related Words

• builder
• planner