# development
## English
### Alternative forms

* developement (obsolete)

### Etymology

From French développement, from Old French desvelopemens (“unrolling”). By surface analysis, develop +‎ -ment. First attested in 1756.

### Pronunciation

* IPA: /dɪˈvɛləpmənt/
* (India) IPA: /ˈdɛʋ(ə)ləpmənt/, /dɛˈʋɛləpmənt/
* Audio (US):(file)

### Noun

development (countable and uncountable, plural developments)
* (uncountable) The process of developing; growth, directed change.
    The development of this story has been slow.
** 2013 July 19, Ian Sample, “Irregular bedtimes may affect children's brains”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 189, number 6, page 34:Irregular bedtimes may disrupt healthy brain development in young children, according to a study of intelligence and sleeping habits. ¶ Going to bed at a different time each night affected girls more than boys, but both fared worse on mental tasks than children who had a set bedtime, researchers found.
* (uncountable, biology) The process by which a mature multicellular organism or part of an organism is produced by the addition of new cells.
    The organism has reached a crucial stage in its development.
** 1992, Rudolf M[athias] Schuster, The Hepaticae and Anthocerotae of North America: East of the Hundredth Meridian, volume V, Chicago, Ill.: Field Museum of Natural History, →ISBN, page 5:Of more significance in the nature of branch development; in the Jubulaceae, as in the Porellaceae, branches are acroscopic and normally replace a ventral leaf lobe.
* (countable) Something which has developed.
    Our news team brings you the latest developments.
* (real estate, countable) A project consisting of one or more commercial or residential buildings.
* (real estate, uncountable) The building of such a project.
* (uncountable) The application of new ideas to practical problems (cf. research).
    Our development department has produced three new adhesives this year.
* (chess, uncountable) The active placement of the pieces, or the process of achieving it.
    White's development is good, but black's has been hampered by the pawn on e5.
* (music) The process by in which previous material is transformed and restated.
* (music) The second section of a piece of music in sonata form, in which the original theme is revisited in altered and varying form.
* (mathematics) The expression of a function in the form of a series.
* (photography) The processing of photographic film so as to bring out the images latent in it.
    I sent the film to a specialist lab for development.

#### Derived terms

* antidevelopment
* arrested development
* business development
* career development
* cluster development
* codevelopment
* community development
* counterdevelopment
* development aid
* developmental
* developmentary
* developmentation
* development hell
* development limbo
* development mule
* devlog
* DevOps
* DevSecOps
* disorder of sex development
* dualistic development
* ecodevelopment
* ethnodevelopment
* human development
* hyperdevelopment
* hypodevelopment
* maldevelopment
* megadevelopment
* misdevelopment
* neurodevelopment
* nondevelopment
* overdevelopment
* personal development
* predevelopment
* psychosexual development
* redevelopment
* resume-driven development
* sociodevelopment
* subdevelopment
* superdevelopment
* sustainable development
* test-driven development
* topside development
* underdevelopment
* undevelopment
* web development
* zone of proximal development

#### Translations

    The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.

### Further reading

* "development" in Raymond Williams, Keywords (revised), 1983, Fontana Press, page 103.