default
Pluraldefaults
Verbdefaults, defaulting, defaulted
Pluraldefaults
Formsdefaults, defaulting, defaulted
- 1A value used when no other has been provided; a presumed standard or starting point.
If the user enters nothing, the program falls back to a sensible default.
The temperature setting returns to its default whenever the unit is unplugged.
Similarpreset
Note
It is most at home before another noun: a default value, a default standard. Used on its own it usually takes the definite article: if nothing is specified, the default is 1. The verb, defaults to, names the value a system falls back on.
- 2The condition of having failed to meet an obligation, especially the repayment of borrowed money.
The bond entered default when the issuer could not pay interest on time.
Lenders raise their rates to cover the chance of default.
Similarnonpayment, delinquency
Note
Finance uses it for the debtor's side of a broken promise. A borrower who misses payments is in default, and the lender may ask for the default to be cured, or put right, by paying what is owed. Compare the debt's own default, where the obligation rather than the person is in default. The matching verb is default on a loan.
- 3A selection that takes effect when no other option has been chosen.
Silence often becomes the default when no one wants to decide.
The committee treated inaction as the default rather than a real choice.
Similarfallback
Note
Nobody actively makes this choice. It is what takes effect because nothing else was put forward. A man becomes leader as a default when no one else steps up. Before a noun it means "chosen because nothing else was". Felicity Cloake, writing in the Guardian in 2011, calls nut roast the default Sunday option for vegetarians. Elsewhere, signage can have English set as the default language.
- 4To fail to fulfill a financial obligation, such as repaying a debt.
The company defaulted on its bonds last quarter.
Homeowners who default risk losing everything they have invested.
Note
The verb takes on before whatever goes unpaid: you default on a loan, and a company defaults on its bonds. The debt is never its direct object, so nobody "defaults a loan". Its result is the borrower's condition: someone who defaults is then in default, and stays so until the obligation is met.
- 5The original software settings as configured at the factory before any user changes.
After the update failed, she restored the router to its default.
The default settings hide advanced features from new users.
Note
Here the word names a whole configuration rather than a single value: the state a device or program ships in, and the one a reset returns it to. It takes both count and mass forms (restore the defaults, or reset to default), and it often stands before a noun, as in default settings. Unlike the general "presumed value" sense, it implies a known factory baseline, not just whatever applies when nothing is specified.
- 6To take on a preset value when none has been specified.
When no language is set, the site defaults to English.
Browsers default to a standard font if none is specified.
Similarrevert
Note
The computing verb works both ways round. Used intransitively, a setting falls back by itself: if you don't specify a color, it defaults to red. Used transitively, a system sets something else, as in Tony Martin and Dominic Selly's Visual Basic .NET at Work (2002): "It defaults your application to Windows authentication mode." Either way, to introduces the value.
- 7A loss that results from failing to take part in a contest.
Failing to appear, the challenger conceded the title by default.
A default counts against a team just as a played loss would.
Similarforfeit
- 8To lose a competition as a result of failing to take part in it.
The team defaulted after failing to field enough players.
Arrive late and you default automatically.
Similarforfeit
Note
Competition uses it mostly without an object, as in "the team defaulted". It can also take the contest itself: refuse the proper uniform and you will default this match. Forfeit is the close synonym. Default puts the stress on not taking part at all, and what results is recorded as a loss by default.
- 9A defendant's failure to appear in court and respond to a summons and complaint.
The court entered a judgment by default when the defendant ignored the summons.
Her attorney moved to set aside the default and reopen the case.
Note
Here the broken obligation is procedural: answering the court. A defendant who neither appears nor answers in the time allowed lets the plaintiff seek judgment without a contested hearing. That is why the word so often travels with judgment. Keep it apart from the financial condition. Someone can be in default on a loan and still be fully present in court.
- 10To fail to appear in court and respond to a summons and complaint.
The tenant defaulted, and the landlord won the case automatically.
Defendants who default lose the chance to tell their side.
Note
This is the verb behind the courtroom noun, and it takes no object and needs no preposition. A defendant simply defaults, and the consequences follow from the silence itself. The noun phrases that grow around it, such as judgment by default, describe what the court then does in the defendant's absence.
- 11The condition of an obligation that has not been satisfied.
The mortgage remained in default until the family refinanced.
Years in default badly damaged the borrower's credit.
Similararrears, delinquency
Less common meanings
- 12A failure or omission; neglect to do what duty or law requires.
Through the captain's default, the supplies never reached the troops.
She blamed the loss on the servant's default in his nightly rounds.
Note
Here the word is still close to its Old French source, defaute, which covered fault, defect, failure, culpability and lack together. Behind that lies Latin fallo, "deceive, escape notice of". In this use, default is a neglect of duty laid at someone's door, as in "through the governor's default". It belongs to older texts. In new writing, failure or neglect says the same thing plainly.
- 13A lack or absence; the want of something that is needed or expected.
In default of an heir, the estate passed to the crown.
one was dragging a great coat from the window, before which it had long hung as a blind, in total default of glass or shutters
1820, [Charles Robert Maturin], Melmoth the Wanderer: A Tale.Note
The "lack" meaning shows the French defaute behind the obsolete sense of neglect in its plainest form. It works through prepositions, and it survives mainly in the phrase in default of. Maturin's Melmoth the Wanderer (1820) hangs a coat as a blind "in total default of glass or shutters", meaning there were none at all. For lack of is the everyday modern equivalent.
- 14A fault or offense; a wrongful act for which one is to blame.
regardless of our merit or default
1728, [Alexander Pope], The DunciadNote
Here the word carries blame, not mere omission. It means a wrong done, and it is the opposite of merit. Pope pairs the two in The Dunciad (1728): "regardless of our merit or default". That pairing is the clearest way to hear the meaning. The French defaute already included culpability. In modern prose this use would simply be misread as a failure to pay or to act.
Showing meanings only.
Practice
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Origin
From Middle English defaut, from Old French defaute ("fault, defect, failure, lack"), ultimately from Latin de- ("away") plus fallo ("deceive, cheat, escape notice of").