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Synonyms

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 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.

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

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Etymology

Origin of developer

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

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

These days, being a limelight-seeking senator, swing-state governor, or New York City real estate developer who used to host a reality TV show can do the trick.

From Slate • Apr. 6, 2026

OpenClaw, built by Austrian developer Peter Steinberger, is an example of how this is playing out.

From BBC • Apr. 5, 2026

What’s more, SpaceX threatens to overshadow just about any other company that might look to IPO later this year, except maybe for ChatGPT owner OpenAI and Claude developer Anthropic.

From Barron's • Apr. 3, 2026

“We’re incentivizing developers whose only go/no-go is whether the factory stays in business. To me, that’s a developer who is probably not very savvy.”

From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 3, 2026

Ralph had tipped Grover off about the developer being in over his head; Grover was thinking to buy him out.

From "Typical American" by Gish Jen

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.