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• failure to fulfil an obligation, especially to repay a loan or appear in a law court.

• "the company will have to restructure its debts to avoid default"

Similar: non-payment, failure to pay, non-remittance, welshing, bilking, levant,

Opposite: repayment,

• a preselected option adopted by a computer program or other mechanism when no alternative is specified by the user or programmer.

• "the default is fifty lines"

• fail to fulfil an obligation, especially to repay a loan or to appear in a law court.

• "the dealer could repossess the goods if the customer defaulted"

Similar: fail to pay, not pay, renege, fail to honour, back out, backtrack, backslide, break one's promise/word, go back on one's word, welsh, bilk,

Opposite: repay,

• (of a computer program or other mechanism) revert automatically to (a preselected option).

• "when you start a fresh letter the system will default to its own style"

Similar: revert, select automatically,

Origin: Middle English: from Old French defaut, from defaillir ‘to fail’, based on Latin fallere ‘disappoint, deceive’.

• guilty of failing to repay a loan or appear in a law court.

• "the company is already in default on its loans"

• because of a lack of opposition.
"they won the last election by default"

• (of a case) be decided in favour of one party because of lack of opposition by the other party.
"the case against us has gone by default"

• guilty of failing to repay a loan or appear in a law court.
"the company is already in default on its loans"

• in the absence of.
"in default of agreement the rent was to be determined by a surveyor"