Free Translator Free Translator
Translators Dictionaries Courses Other
Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Lapse   /læps/   Listen
noun
Lapse  n.  
1.
A gliding, slipping, or gradual falling; an unobserved or imperceptible progress or passing away,; restricted usually to immaterial things, or to figurative uses. "The lapse to indolence is soft and imperceptible." "Bacon was content to wait the lapse of long centuries for his expected revenue of fame."
2.
A slip; an error; a fault; a failing in duty; a slight deviation from truth or rectitude. "To guard against those lapses and failings to which our infirmities daily expose us."
3.
(Law) The termination of a right or privilege through neglect to exercise it within the limited time, or through failure of some contingency; hence, the devolution of a right or privilege.
4.
(Theol.) A fall or apostasy.


verb
Lapse  v. t.  
1.
To let slip; to permit to devolve on another; to allow to pass. "An appeal may be deserted by the appellant's lapsing the term of law."
2.
To surprise in a fault or error; hence, to surprise or catch, as an offender. (Obs.) "For which, if be lapsed in this place, I shall pay dear."


Lapse  v. i.  (past & past part. lapsed; pres. part. lapsing)  
1.
To pass slowly and smoothly downward, backward, or away; to slip downward, backward, or away; to glide; mostly restricted to figurative uses. "A tendency to lapse into the barbarity of those northern nations from whom we are descended." "Homer, in his characters of Vulcan and Thersites, has lapsed into the burlesque character."
2.
To slide or slip in moral conduct; to fail in duty; to fall from virtue; to deviate from rectitude; to commit a fault by inadvertence or mistake. "To lapse in fullness Is sorer than to lie for need."
3.
(Law)
(a)
To fall or pass from one proprietor to another, or from the original destination, by the omission, negligence, or failure of some one, as a patron, a legatee, etc.
(b)
To become ineffectual or void; to fall. "If the archbishop shall not fill it up within six months ensuing, it lapses to the king."





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words


Share |




"Lapse" Quotes from Famous Books



... Rogt was distracted with anxiety and terror. The public papers immediately took up the theme, and the police were upon the point of making serious investigations, when, one fine morning, after the lapse of a week, Marie, in good health, but with a somewhat saddened air, made her re-appearance at her usual counter in the perfumery. All inquiry, except that of a private character, was of course immediately hushed. Monsieur Le Blanc professed total ignorance, as before. Marie, with Madame, replied ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... by. It is ten years now since I was married, and in that lapse of time there is hardly a happening that I remember, unless it be the disillusion of the death of Marie's rich godmother, who left us nothing. There was the failure of the Pocard scheme, which was only a swindle ...
— Light • Henri Barbusse
... together for they scarce know what, Now loud proclaiming their late, whisper'd grief, Be wrought at length? Perhaps to yield the city. Thus where the Alps their airy ridge extend, Gently at first the melting snows descend; From the broad slopes, with murm'ring lapse they glide In soft meanders, down the mountain's side; But lower fall'n streams, with each other crost, From rock to rock impetuously are tost, 'Till in the Rhone's capacious bed they're lost. United there, roll rapidly away, ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753),Vol. V. • Theophilus Cibber
... in surprise. "Do you mean you've got the regular habit of not drinkin', or is it only a temporary lapse of duty?" ...
— The Texan - A Story of the Cattle Country • James B. Hendryx
... niche stood John Adolphus Schwarzenberg, and the fires of passion and resentment burned in the glance which he fixed upon the Princess, whom he now saw for the first time after a lapse of three years. How much pain and mortification had he not suffered during these three years on her account? The only change wrought in the Princess by the flight of time was a more perfect development of beauty ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach


More quotes...


Copyright © 2025 Free-Translator.com