- laps´er
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–n.1. a slight mistake or error: »
a lapse of the tongue because of carelessness, a lapse of memory.
SYNONYM(S): slip, fault, indiscretion, misstep.2. a slipping by; passing away: »A minute is a short lapse of time. Sunny Plaines, And liquid Lapse of murmuring Streams (Milton).
3. a) the act of slipping back; sinking down; slipping into a lower condition: »War is a lapse into savage ways.
b) the act of falling or passing into any state: »a lapse into silence.
4. a slipping or falling away from what is right: »a moral lapse. The long strife with evil which began With the first lapse of new-created man (John Greenleaf Whittier).
5. the ending of a right or privilege because it was not renewed, not used, or otherwise neglected: »the lapse of a lease.
6. a falling into disuse or ruin: »the lapse of a custom.
7. an apostatizing from the faith; a falling into heresy.8. Meteorology. a decrease of temperature of the atmosphere with increase of altitude.–v.i.1. to make a slight mistake or error.2. to slip by; pass away: »The boy's interest soon lapsed. I saw the river lapsing slowly onward (Hawthorne).
3. a) to slip back; sink down: »The abandoned house lapsed into ruin.
b) to fall or pass into any specified state: »to lapse into silence. It is difficult to talk to youth today without lapsing into jargon and clichés (New York Times).
4. to slip or fall away from what is right: »Little boys sometimes lapse from good behavior.
5. (of a right or privilege) to end because it was not renewed, not used, or otherwise neglected: »His driver's license lapsed when he failed to renew it. If a legal claim is not enforced, it lapses after a certain number of years.
6. to fall into disuse.7. to apostatize; forsake one's faith: »He is a lapsed Presbyterian, while Dolores takes her Catholicism very seriously (Time).
–v.t.╂[< Latin lāpsus, -ūs a fall < lābī to slip, fall]–laps´er, noun.
Useful english dictionary. 2012.
