Sample sentences for DEFAULT - verbalworkout.com

3 meanings

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1 —as in:
the default options

Definition

an automatic result that happens (or already happened) unless it is changed by intentional action

default = automatic result if no action is taken

Other Uses (with this meaning)

If you don't express a preference, the company defaults to withholding some of your paycheck to invest in your personal Individual Retirement Account.

defaults = has an automatic result (if no action is taken)

The ironic thing is though, at Williamson I don't have to "play it cool" — I'm cool by default because I'm one of the only black kids there.
Angie Thomas -- The Hate U Give

default = automatic result unless something changes it

Like I said, at Williamson I'm cool by default because I'm black.
Angie Thomas -- The Hate U Give

default = automatic result unless something changes it

When Daddy isn't home, Seven acts like he's the man of the house by default.
Angie Thomas -- The Hate U Give

default = automatic result

2 —as in:
defaulted on their loan

Definition

failing to meet a financial obligation—such as making a monthly payment on a debt

default = not make the payments

Other Uses (with this meaning)

defaulted = failed to meet a financial obligation

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.
T. H. White -- The Once and Future King
Somebody broke down in a piece of knitting, and no one but Sophy was able to put the defaulter in the right direction.
Charles Dickens -- David Copperfield
"Still, to have kept her grandmother's carriage at a defaulter's door!"
Edith Wharton -- The Age of Innocence
If she had occasion to find fault, she did it coolly and with perfect politeness, which the defaulter felt to be a bigger insult than crassness.
D.H. Lawrence -- Sons and Lovers
His name had been proclaimed as a defaulter on the Stock Exchange, and his bankruptcy and commercial extermination had followed.
William Makepeace Thackeray -- Vanity Fair
The cheat, the defaulter, the gambler, cannot extort the knowledge of material and moral nature which his honest care and pains yield to the operative.
Ralph Waldo Emerson -- Selected Essays
Woe to the defaulter whose appeal lay to the tribunal where those severe eyes presided.
Charles Dickens -- Little Dorrit
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.
John F. Kennedy -- Profiles in Courage

3 —as in:
lost by default

Definition

a result in a competition due to a competitor not showing up or not meeting minimum requirements

Our bus broke down, so we didn't get there on time and lost the game by default.

default = by not showing up

Other Uses (with this meaning)

default = because [the opponent] didn't show up

There are only three companies in town that provide the service and ours is the only one that is bonded, so we got the contract by default.

Less commonly:

More rarely, to default is not to show up in court.

All the meanings of default have to do with what will happen if an action is not taken.

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