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default Definition

de·fault (dē fôlt′, di-)

noun

  1. failure to do something or be somewhere when required or expected; specif.,
    1. failure to pay money due
    2. failure to appear in court to defend or prosecute a case
    3. failure to take part in or finish a contest
  2. Comput. a preset choice, setting, etc. for automatic use as by a program when no other is specified by a user: often used attributively a default disk drive on a PC
  3. Obsolete a fault, lack, or want

Etymology: ME < OFr defaute < VL *defallita, pp. of *defallere, to lack < L de-, away + fallere, to fail

intransitive verb

  1. to fail to do something or be somewhere when required or expected; specif.,
    1. to fail to make payment when due
    2. to fail to appear in court when required
    3. to fail to take part in or finish a contest
  2. to lose a contest by default

Etymology: ME defauten < OFr defauter

transitive verb

  1. to fail to do, pay, finish, etc. (something) when required
  2. to lose (a contest, etc.) by default; forfeit

default Related Forms

de·fault′er noun

default Idioms

in default of

in the absence of; through lack of

default Synonyms

default

n.

failure, lack, delinquency, dereliction, omission, error, failure to act, inaction, failure to pay, nonpayment, oversight, neglect, negligence, shortcoming, want, inadequacy, insufficiency, failure to appear, lapse, fault, nonfeasance, nonfulfillment, arrears, arrearage; see also omission 1.

Antonyms discharge, fulfillment, payment.

in default of

lacking, insufficient, failing, in the absence of; see wanting 1.

default Finance Definition

Failure to meet the terms of a loan or other debt; such terms may include making periodic payments or repaying the principal by a certain date. When a corporation defaults on a loan, the lender can take legal action toward the company, including pushing it into bankruptcy.

default Law Definition

n

v

  1. The failure to perform a legal or contractual requirement, such as the payment of a debt by the due date.
  2. To fail to perform such a requirement.

default Usage Examples

Converse of object

  • override: Giving an explicit ' -k ' option to cvs update, cvs export, or cvs checkout overrides this default.
  • accept: Generally, you can accept the default values for the bounding area, but you should change those for the E-W and N-S resolution.
  • omit: When specifying times using this style, fields that are omitted default as follows.
  • restore: To restore the default values press the Default button.
  • suggest: The suggested default is the data type of the data array in the IN NDF.

Converse of subject

  • disable: The Unix Teaching System's mozilla has JavaScript disabled by default.
  • install: Not all of them are installed by default on the Home edition of Windows XP.
  • enable: These features are not enabled by default on this model.

Adjective modifier

wilful: It could hardly be said that the payer is in wilful default justifying a penalty under the Debtors Act 1869.

Preposition: on

repayment: Chainbreaker can also be used to release equity or in circumstances where there is the potential to default on mortgage repayments.

Modifies a noun

  • setting: Selected tracks will become the default setting according to a DVD player's language setup.
  • constructor: Public Constructors RWDBReader ( ); The default constructor creates an RWDBReader whose status is RWDBStatus::notInitialized.
  • value: The default value of 10 can be changed up to a value of 150.
  • font: You can choose the size and typeface you see: set the ' default font ' in your own browser.
  • behavior: The other culprit in this is the default behavior of NFS.
  • configuration: The default configuration suits the model of phone you're using.

Noun used with modifier

  • borrower: In bonds, they bet that interest rates will remain low, inflation benign and borrower default levels at unusually low rates.
  • factory: You need to return the box to it's factory default setting, then re-install the channels.
  • browser: An even more exciting possibility is that the browser defaults to guessing the encoding, based on the page's contents.
  • parameter: Without this parameter smbpasswd defaults to the local host.

Browse dictionary entries near default

  1. ‹ defat
  2. ‹ defang
  3. ‹ defamiliarize
  4. ‹ defame
  5. ‹ defamatory
  6. ‹ defamation
  7. ‹ defalcation
  8. ‹ defalcate
  9. ‹ defacement
  10. ‹ deface
  1. default judgment ›
  2. default risk ›
  3. defaulter ›
  4. Defaults ›
  5. DefCon ›
  6. defeasance ›
  7. defeasible ›
  8. defeat ›
  9. defeated ›
  10. defeatist ›