Default

How to spell default

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce default

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does default mean?

1. nounA preset value or option that a system uses automatically unless the user changes it.
2. nounA failure to repay a debt or to meet a legal or financial obligation.
3. verbTo fail to fulfil an obligation, especially to repay money owed.

Default in a sentence

• noun

  The printer reverts to the default paper size after every update.

• noun

  Missing three payments put the borrower in default on the mortgage.

• verb

  If you default on the loan, the lender can seize the property.

• noun

  She changed the default font in the document template to something easier to read.

• noun

  The company narrowly avoided default by refinancing its loans.

• verb

  Several nations risked having to default on their sovereign debt that year.

Where does default come from?

Language of origin: French

This word travelled into English in the 1200s from Old French defaute or defaut, meaning a lack, a shortcoming, or an absence. That French form grew out of Vulgar Latin defallita, ultimately resting on the Latin verb fallere, which literally meant 'to deceive' and from there 'to fail' or 'to be wanting'. The same fallere root quietly powers a whole family of English words, including 'fault', 'fail', 'fallacy', and even 'false', so the spelling makes more sense once you see 'fault' sitting inside it. For centuries the word simply meant a failure to act, and the financial sense of failing to repay a debt grew naturally out of that. The familiar computing meaning, a preset option used automatically unless changed, is a twentieth-century arrival, but it too rests on the old idea of what happens 'in the absence' of any other choice.

How the word is built

• de- (away, failing)
• fault (from Latin fallere: to fail, deceive)