defaulting

1. 1
   noununcountable

   The act or result of failing to meet an obligation, especially failure to repay a debt or make a required payment.

   The bond's defaulting triggered losses across several pension funds.

   Repeated defaulting on supplier payments pushed the firm toward bankruptcy.

   Similarnonpayment, delinquency

   Note

   Here the weight falls on the failing itself rather than the state it leaves behind. The shorter noun default names the condition of an unmet obligation, and defaulting points to the act, often a repeated one. It is countable, so its plural, defaultings, can stand for a series of separate missed payments. Unlike the verb's -ing form, it takes possessives and adjectives like any noun: the bond's defaulting, repeated defaulting.

2. 2
   verb

   Present participle of default.

   Borrowers who keep defaulting risk losing their collateral.

   The government is defaulting on payments to its creditors.

   Note

   The -ing form carries every meaning of default, not only the financial one. A defendant defaults by failing to answer a summons, a player by failing to turn up and compete, and a setting by taking a value when none is given. The first three take no object, while the last can be used with or without one. As a progressive it means the failure is ongoing (is defaulting on payments); as a gerund it names the act.

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