developer
Pluraldevelopers
- 1A person or company that creates computer software or modifies software that already exists.
The startup hired three more developers to rebuild its booking app before the holiday rush.
The developer released a security patch for the app on Friday.
Similarprogrammer, coder
Note
In the software trade it is the everyday job title, usually narrowed by what gets built: web developer, game developer, app developer. It is sometimes swapped with programmer, but developer suggests the wider job of designing, testing and maintaining software as well as writing it. Andrew Van Dam's Department of Data column (2025) found developers far outnumbering programmers in the industry.
- 2A person or company that prepares a piece of land for sale or builds on it.
The developer cleared the parcel and divided it into forty building lots.
Several developers are competing to build solar farms on former farmland.
Similarbuilder
- 3A person or organization that creates or improves products of a particular kind.
The firm is a leading developer of batteries for electric cars.
Engine developers keep improving fuel efficiency with each new model.
Similardesigner
- 4A liquid used in the chemical processing of photographs made the traditional way, on film.
He slid the exposed paper into the developer and watched the image slowly appear.
The darkroom smelled of developer and fixer after a long night of printing.
- 5A person who uses chemicals to produce photographs from negatives.
The developer held each negative up to the light before making a print.
Old photo labs employed developers who handled every roll of film by hand.
- 6In dyeing, a chemical agent that reacts with a substance already on a fiber to produce an ingrain color.
After the first bath, the cotton was passed through a developer, and a deep red formed inside the fibers.
The mill switched developers to get a more even shade of blue on its yarn.
Note
Ingrain dyeing never applies a finished color: the fiber takes up one compound first, and the color forms only when the developer meets it there. Dyes made this way, known as developed dyes, hold up well in washing. Like the darkroom chemical, this developer brings out something already waiting in the material.
Practice
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Origin
From develop + -er.