The most widely used development abbreviation is dev., written Dev. with a capital D in job titles and department names, such as Dev. Manager. Two longer forms also appear: devel., common in software and some science papers, and devt., which is more often seen in British writing. No single form is official, so choose one and use that same form everywhere in the document.
Development also hides inside many familiar letter sets. R&D, BD and L&D all use the D for development, and so do the names of several government agencies. This page shows each short form and the settings where readers will recognize it.
Quick facts
Main abbreviation
dev. (Dev. in titles)Other forms
devel., devt.Period
Yes in formal writing; dev alone in tech talkPlural
devs. (rare); devs for developersUsed in
Org charts, job titles, real estate, software, budgetsRelated terms
R&D, BD, L&D, HUDNot to be confused with
dev for developer, a person
Which development abbreviation to use
| Form | Typical setting | Sample |
|---|---|---|
| Dev. | Job titles, department names, org charts | Dir. of Business Dev. |
| dev | Software teams, chats, project boards | "Push it to the dev server." |
| devel. | Software package names, some research papers | devel. version |
| devt. | British reports, planning and property documents | Housing devt. |
If your readers might not know any of these, write the full word the first time. Many more office and paperwork short forms appear in our common abbreviations roundup.
Dev in tech and software
Software teams use dev without a period all the time, and it can mean two things. As a noun for a stage, it means development: the dev environment is the copy of a system where new code is tried before it goes live. As a noun for a person, a dev is a developer, someone who writes code. The plural devs nearly always means people.
Team chat: "The fix is on dev now. If QA signs off, the devs will ship it to production Thursday." Here the first dev is the test setting and devs are the programmers.
The longer devel shows up in names of software packages that hold the files a programmer needs to build other programs. It is a naming habit more than a writing rule.
Business letter sets built on development
- R&D: research and development, the work of creating new products or methods.
- BD or biz dev: business development, finding new partners, clients and markets.
- L&D: learning and development, the training team in a company's human resources group. The HR page covers that department.
- PD: professional development, the classes and workshops that teachers and other workers take to keep skills current.
- IDP: individual development plan, a written set of goals an employee and a manager agree on.
These are usually written in capitals with no periods. R&D uses an ampersand rather than the word and.
Development in government and real estate
In the United States, development is the D at the end of HUD, the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development. Cities and counties often have a community development office too, which may appear on forms as Comm. Dev. or simply CD.
In real estate, a development is a group of homes or buildings planned and built together. Signs and listings may shorten it to Dev., as in "Oak Ridge Dev., Phase 2." Zoning papers sometimes use the letters PUD for planned unit development.
Site sign: "Future home of Maple Creek Dev. Model homes open soon." The abbreviation saves space on a sign seen from the road.
Periods, capitals and plurals
In formal writing, add a period: dev., devel., devt. Inside a title or proper name, such as Economic Dev. Office, the D is a capital. In fast, casual tech writing, dev with no period is normal and widely accepted.
There is no strong plural for the abbreviation of the word development. Writers tend to spell out "developments" instead, because devs already means developers. Read aloud, you can say the whole word or simply "dev," which many people now use as a short word in speech.
Habits that keep dev. clear
- Spell out development the first time in reports read by people outside your field.
- Use Dev. for titles and dev for tech talk, but do not mix forms in one document.
- Do not shorten it in headlines for the public, where full words read better.
- Pair it carefully with other short forms. "Mgmt. and Dev." is clear; a string of five abbreviations is not. The management abbreviation page lists Mgmt. and Mgt.
Questions people ask
What is the abbreviation for development?
The most common is dev., or Dev. in titles. Devel. and devt. are also used, the first mostly in software and the second mostly in British writing.
What does dev mean in a job title?
It usually means development, as in Business Dev. Manager. In tech titles, dev can also be short for developer, as in Lead Dev.
What does R&D stand for?
R&D stands for research and development. It is the part of a company or lab that creates and tests new products, methods or ideas.
Is dev a word or an abbreviation?
It began as an abbreviation for development and developer. It is now used so often in tech that many people say and write it as a short word.