elapse

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin ēlāpsus (“slipped away”),^[2][3][4] the past participle of ēlābor (“to slip or glide away, escape”);^[2][4][5] the OED, Hoad and the Shorter Oxford name only its participial stem.^[6][7][8] Barnhart and Etymonline route it through Middle French elapser.^[9][10] The Latin verb is formed from ē-, a variant of ex- (“out, away”), and lābor (“to slip, glide”),^[9][11] which Etymonline calls of unknown etymology.^[10] The rare noun is made from the verb,^[6][8][12] possibly under the influence of lapse.^[12]

Earliest recorded meaning

Of time, to slip by or pass away: before 1644, in F. Quarles's The Shepheards Oracles.^[6] Barnhart and Merriam-Webster Unabridged date this to 1644,^[9][2] and Etymonline to the 1640s.^[10] The Shorter Oxford puts the verb in the late 16th century in the sense of slipping away,^[8] and the Oxford Dictionary of English agrees on that date and sense.^[11]

Semantic evolution

The Latin sense of slipping away survived in English only marginally: the OED has lapsing into a condition in 1742, in Johnson, and slipping from the memory in Falconer's Shipwreck (1762–9), both now obsolete,^[6] and the Shorter Oxford has slipping away from a place or from memory until the mid 18th century.^[8] Cromwell used the verb transitively in 1654 for letting time go by, a use that ended in the early 18th century.^[6][2] What remained is the use for time, which Johnson (1755) defined as passing or gliding away, or running out unnoticed.^[13] Etymonline notes that the noun now matching the verb is lapse,^[10] although elapse itself was used as a noun, at first for a flowing out or emanation, from before 1677 to 1811,^[6][2] and then for the passing of time, from 1793.^[6][2]

Timeline

• before 1644 – of time, to slip by, to pass.^[6][9]
• 1654 – transitive, to let time pass (obsolete by 1709).^[6]
• before 1677 – noun, a flowing out, an emanation (obsolete by 1811).^[6][9]
• 1742 – to lapse into a condition (obsolete).^[6]
• 1793 – noun, the passing or expiry of time.^[6]
• 1845 – to flow gently from, in P. J. Bailey's Festus.^[6]

Meanings

Verb

1. Of time, to pass or slip by: Ten minutes elapsed before the bus came.^[14][2][6]
2. (obsolete, 1654–1709) To let time pass.^[6][2][8]

Noun

1. The passing or expiration of a period of time.^[2][6][8]
2. (archaic) A flowing out; an emanation.^[2][6][8]

Word family

• unelapsed

Related words

• lapse
• collapse
• relapse

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
3. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
4. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
5. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ a b c d e f g Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
10. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
11. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ a b Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
13. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
14. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins