1 [U,C] failure to do sth that must be done by law, especially paying a debt:
The company is in default on the loan. * Mortgage defaults have risen in the last year.
2 [U,C,usually sing.] (especially computing) what happens or appears if you do not make any other choice or change:
The default option is to save your work every five minutes. * On this screen, 256 colours is the default.
IDIOMS
by default
1 a game or competition can be won by default if there are no other competitors:
He became world champion in 1990 by default.
2 if sth happens by default, it happens because you have not made any other decision or choices which would make things happen differently:
I became a teacher by default rather than by design.
in default of sth (formal) because of a lack of sth:
They accepted what he had said in default of any evidence to disprove it.
verb [V]
1 ~ (on sth) to fail to do sth that you legally have to do, especially by not paying a debt:
to default on a loan / debt * defaulting borrowers / tenants
2 ~ (to sth) (especially computing) to happen when you do not make any other choice or change
defaulter noun:
mortgage defaulters
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About this entry
This is a English–English dictionary entry.
Sourced from Main Dictionary in Lughet's collection.
This word also appears under other sources in Lughet's collection — see the list below.
This entry for default is sourced from Main Dictionary, one of the dictionaries and corpora merged into Lughet.
Is default a noun, verb, or something else?
In this entry, default is tagged as noun.
Does default appear elsewhere on Lughet?
Yes — default appears under other sources or language pairs in Lughet's collection. See the list below.
What is Lughet?
Lughet is a free trilingual dictionary covering nearly five million entries across Uyghur, Chinese, and English, drawn from more than ten source dictionaries and corpora.
