Library / English Dictionary

LAPSE

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (noun) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

A failure to maintain a higher state

Synonyms:

backsliding; lapse; lapsing; relapse; relapsing; reversion; reverting

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Hypernyms ("lapse" is a kind of...):

failure (an act that fails)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "lapse"):

recidivism (habitual relapse into crime)

Derivation:

lapse (go back to bad behavior)

lapse (drop to a lower level, as in one's morals or standards)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A mistake resulting from inattention

Synonyms:

lapse; oversight

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Hypernyms ("lapse" is a kind of...):

error; fault; mistake (a wrong action attributable to bad judgment or ignorance or inattention)

Sense 3

Meaning:

A break or intermission in the occurrence of something

Example:

a lapse of three weeks between letters

Classified under:

Nouns denoting time and temporal relations

Hypernyms ("lapse" is a kind of...):

break; intermission; interruption; pause; suspension (a time interval during which there is a temporary cessation of something)

Derivation:

lapse (end, at least for a long time)

lapse (pass by)

lapse (let slip)

 II. (verb) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Go back to bad behavior

Example:

Those who recidivate are often minor criminals

Synonyms:

fall back; lapse; recidivate; regress; relapse; retrogress

Classified under:

Verbs of grooming, dressing and bodily care

Hypernyms (to "lapse" is one way to...):

regress; retrovert; return; revert; turn back (go back to a previous state)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s

Derivation:

lapse (a failure to maintain a higher state)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Drop to a lower level, as in one's morals or standards

Synonyms:

backslide; lapse

Classified under:

Verbs of size, temperature change, intensifying, etc.

Hypernyms (to "lapse" is one way to...):

drop away; drop off; fall away; slip (get worse)

Sentence frame:

Something ----s

Derivation:

lapse (a failure to maintain a higher state)

Sense 3

Meaning:

End, at least for a long time

Example:

The correspondence lapsed

Classified under:

Verbs of size, temperature change, intensifying, etc.

Hypernyms (to "lapse" is one way to...):

cease; end; finish; stop; terminate (have an end, in a temporal, spatial, or quantitative sense; either spatial or metaphorical)

Sentence frame:

Something ----s

Derivation:

lapse (a break or intermission in the occurrence of something)

Sense 4

Meaning:

Pass into a specified state or condition

Example:

He sank into nirvana

Synonyms:

lapse; pass; sink

Classified under:

Verbs of walking, flying, swimming

Hypernyms (to "lapse" is one way to...):

move (go or proceed from one point to another)

Sentence frames:

Something is ----ing PP
Somebody ----s PP

Sense 5

Meaning:

Pass by

Example:

three years elapsed

Synonyms:

elapse; glide by; go along; go by; lapse; pass; slide by; slip away; slip by

Classified under:

Verbs of walking, flying, swimming

Hypernyms (to "lapse" is one way to...):

advance; go on; march on; move on; pass on; progress (move forward, also in the metaphorical sense)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "lapse"):

fell; fly; vanish (pass away rapidly)

Sentence frames:

Something ----s
Something is ----ing PP

Derivation:

lapse (a break or intermission in the occurrence of something)

Sense 6

Meaning:

Let slip

Example:

He lapsed his membership

Classified under:

Verbs of buying, selling, owning

Hypernyms (to "lapse" is one way to...):

forego; forfeit; forgo; give up; throw overboard; waive (lose (s.th.) or lose the right to (s.th.) by some error, offense, or crime)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s something

Derivation:

lapse (a break or intermission in the occurrence of something)

Credits

 Context examples: 

At the time the circumstances made a deep impression upon me, and the lapse of two years has hardly served to weaken the effect.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

It travelled across the continent, and after a certain lapse of time the postman returned him the manuscript in another long envelope, on the outside of which were the stamps he had enclosed.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

Bill grunted his disagreement with the diagnosis, and lapsed into silence.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

Registered nurses who have not achieved CCRN certification status or whose CCRN status has lapsed are not authorized to use the CCRN credential.

(Certification in Critical Care Nursing, NCI Thesaurus)

His short dark hair seemed to bristle upwards, his eyes glowed with the intensity of his passion, and his face expressed a malignity of hatred which neither the death of his enemy nor the lapse of years could mitigate.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

It was my intention to have stopped there, and to have said nothing of that event which has created a void in my life which the lapse of two years has done little to fill.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

“A material difference then,” she replied—“and no doubt you were much my superior in judgment at that period of our lives; but does not the lapse of one-and-twenty years bring our understandings a good deal nearer?

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

Far more potent were the memories of his heredity that gave things he had never seen before a seeming familiarity; the instincts (which were but the memories of his ancestors become habits) which had lapsed in later days, and still later, in him, quickened and become alive again.

(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)

Whether it was the following Sunday when I saw the gentleman again, or whether there was any greater lapse of time before he reappeared, I cannot recall.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

When at last she left you, you lapsed at once into deep reverie: you betook yourself slowly to pace the gallery.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)