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/lˈæpsɪŋ/ Listen

verb

Lapse v. t.

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."

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)

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."

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."

(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."

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Etymology of 'Lapsing'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Lapsing" Quotes from Famous Books

... the soft, slow sound of lapsing waters, the rocking on the tide, the long sway of some idle weed. Here a jet of tune was flung out from a distant bark, here a high octave flashed like a passing torch through night-shadows, and lofty arching darkness told ...

— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various

... about the dark stranger, as in his illness he had forgotten all that this episode had reminded him of. I don't like this lapsing into forgetfulness. It may make or continue some injury to the brain. I must not ask him, for fear I shall do more harm than good, but I must somehow learn the facts of his journey abroad. The time is come, I ...

— Dracula • Bram Stoker

... the response, and then unconsciously lapsing into his rhythmical way of expressing himself, the old man added: "Though flying through the air so high they'll come back ...

— The Girl Aviators on Golden Wings • Margaret Burnham

... was killed in a duel at Washington by William J. Graves, of Kentucky. This event occurred forty-five years ago, but the outcry with which it was received even at that time—one of the newspaper moralists lapsing into rhyme as he deplored the cruel custom which led excellent men ...

— Ars Recte Vivende - Being Essays Contributed to "The Easy Chair" • George William Curtis

... cannot so in any real sense be his. There does not exist such a power of possessing as he would arrogate. There is not such a sense of having as that of which he has conceived the shadow in his degenerate and lapsing imagination. The real owner of his demesne is that pedlar passing his gate, into a divine soul receiving the sweetnesses which not all the greed of the so-counted possessor can keep within his walls: ...

— Hope of the Gospel • George MacDonald

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