Sample Sentences for
default
grouped by contextual meaning
(editor-reviewed)

default as in:  the default options

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I always override the default options.
default = automatic result if no action is taken
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    If you don't express a preference, the company default is to withhold some of your paycheck to invest in your personal Individual Retirement Account.
    default = automatic result (if no action is taken)
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    Like I said, at Williamson I'm cool by default because I'm black.  (source)
    default = automatic result (unless something changes it)
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    It meant they'd probably left everything else in the template at the default setting too.  (source)
    default = automatic result unless something else is chosen
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    Given my lack of choices, what if I've just chosen him by default?  (source)
    default = accepting an automatic solution instead of making a choice
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    At the one end, a defaulting clerk, at the other a vanishing cook.†  (source)
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    Land of misease, because there be three manner of defaults against three things that folk of this world have in this present life; that is to say, honours, delights, and riches.†  (source)
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    So is Cheddar, I think, but snoozing is his default setting, so I can't be sure.  (source)
    default = an automatic result unless something changes it
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    Another was a married man with two children, who had lost money through a defaulting solicitor; he had a bowed look as if the world were too much for him; he went about his work silently, and it was plain that he found it difficult at his age to commit facts to memory.†  (source)
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    But, considering his own defaults and demerits, — remembering the patience of Christ and the undeserved tribulations of the saints, the brevity of this life with all its trouble and sorrow, the discredit thrown on the wisdom and training of a man who cannot bear wrong with patience —he should refrain wholly from taking vengeance.†  (source)
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    Do you really want to get me by default?  (source)
    default = accepting an automatic solution instead of making a choice
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    His eagerness over this uninteresting matter of a defaulting cook was extraordinary, but I realized that he considered it a point of honour to persevere until he finally succeeded.†  (source)
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    Her default setting seemed to be stuck on Disapprove.  (source)
    default = automatic result
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    Mr Pancks would say, to a defaulting lodger.†  (source)
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default as in:  defaulted on their loan

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If I don't sell my home, I'll have to default on my loan.
default = not make the payments
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    I defaulted on my loan, and they repossessed my car.
    defaulted = failed to pay money that was owed
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    Credit Default Indenturement.  (source)
    Default = failing to make loan payments
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    Joe had defaulted on his construction loan and had never bothered to transfer the deeds to the new owners.  (source)
    defaulted = been unable to make payments
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    A large ledger lay open at the note of some wretched defaulter, William atte Lane, who had been condemned to be hanged, suspendatur, for looting.†  (source)
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    His interest rates were outrageous, and little by little he began amassing more land and property as people defaulted on their loans.  (source)
    defaulted = were unable to make loan payments
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    In these times a good banker has to be able to walk away from dreamers and pleaders and potential defaulters.†  (source)
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    Ten percent of these franchise loans ended in default.  (source)
    default = an inability to make loan payments
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    Labeled a traitor to his party and section and an ally of the Whigs and British, Benton openly lost the support of prominent candidates for the Missouri Legislature and was subject to all manner of personal attacks—as a nonresident, a defaulter in his debts, and one contemptuous of public opinion.†  (source)
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    It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note, insofar as her citizens of color are concerned.  (source)
    defaulted = failed to make payments (figuratively)
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    I started, or rather (for like other defaulters, I like to lay half the blame on ill fortune and adverse circumstances) was thrust on to a wrong tack at the age of one-and-twenty, and have never recovered the right course since: but I might have been very different; I might have been as good as you — wiser — almost as stainless.†  (source)
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    Still, to have kept her grandmother's carriage at a defaulter's door!†  (source)
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    And then, of course, the economy tanked and the country defaulted on its debt.†  (source)
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    This has been represented as both an implied relinquishment of those debts and a wicked way to protect public defaulters.†  (source)
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default as in:  lost by default

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    My opponent didn't show up, so I won by default.
    default = automatic result of the opponent not showing up
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    But I don't just stay with him by default as if there's no one else available to me.  (source)
    default = a result due to others not meeting minimum requirements
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    His peers were unwilling to examine the dead, and so the job had fallen to him, by default as it were.  (source)
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    Despite the heat, there is a festiveness everywhere, with those who remain behind having now won the city by default.  (source)
    default = because [the opponent] didn't show up
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    If I stayed in bed when the verdict was read, did that mean the plaintiff lost by default?  (source)
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