lapse

Etymology

The noun is borrowed from Middle French laps,^[2][3] and directly borrowed from Latin lāpsus (“a slipping and falling, flight of time, falling into error”),^{[4][2][3][5][6]} from the past participle of lābor (“to glide, slip, fall”).^[4][7][6] The Anglo-Norman laps, recorded from 1350–51, already meant both the termination of a right through neglect and the passing of time.^[8] The verb is inherited from Middle English lapsen,^[9][2] partly from the noun, partly lāpsō (“to slip, stumble, fall”), a frequentative of the same Latin verb.^{[9][7][4][10]} The OED notes that in English the physical senses appear late, although they are the original ones.^[4] The Latin verb is also the source of collapse, elapse, relapse and prolapse.^[6][11][10]

Earliest recorded meaning

The verb is first recorded, probably before 1425, in a translation of Chauliac's Grande Chirurgie, of a bodily humour that has deviated from the normal; by about 1443, in Pecock, time had lapsid, gone by.^[2][9] The noun meant the passing of time in 1440, and the loss of a right through neglect about 1447.^[2][3] The OED, whose entry is not fully revised, dates the noun only from 1526, as a slip of memory or a slight error.^[4]

Semantic evolution

The noun took on the moral sense of a fall into sin by about 1500, and that of a slight mistake or a slip of the memory or the tongue by 1526.^[2][3][4] A falling away from one's faith is recorded from the 1650s, and in theology the lapse was once Adam's Fall (1659–1774).^[3][4] Milton's Paradise Lost (1667) has the liquid lapse of murm'ring streams, a gliding flow, which Johnson quoted for the sense "flow, fall, glide".^[4][12] From 1758 the word was used of the passing of time and of an interval elapsed.^[4] For the verb, the sense of falling into error appears in Shakespeare's Cymbeline (before 1616),^[4][2] falling away by degrees from 1641,^[4] and the legal sense of a right that passes or becomes void from 1726.^[4][3] In insurance a policy lapses when its premiums are not paid.^[13]

Timeline

• before 1425 – verb, of a humour, to deviate from the normal.^[2][9]
• 1440 – noun, the elapsing of time.^[2]
• c. 1443 – verb, of time, to pass.^[9][2]
• c. 1447 – noun, the loss of a right through neglect.^[2]
• c. 1500 – noun, a moral transgression.^[2][3]
• 1526 – noun, a slip of the memory or the tongue; a slight error.^[4][2]
• before 1616 – verb, to fall into error (Shakespeare).^[4]
• 1641 – verb, to fall away by degrees.^[4]
• 1667 – noun, a gliding flow (Milton).^[4]
• 1726 – verb, of a right, to become void.^[4][3]
• 1758 – noun, the passing of time; an interval.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. A slight error or temporary failure: a lapse of concentration.^[14][13][4]
2. A temporary fall below one's usual standard, or a moral slip.^[13][14][4]
3. A falling away from a faith or principles.^[14][4]
4. An interval of time that has passed; a break: After a lapse of ten years they met again.^[13][14][4]
5. A gradual decline to a lower state or condition.^[13][4]
6. In law, the ending of a right or privilege because it was not used in time or a condition failed.^[13][14][4]
7. In insurance, the ending of cover after the premiums are not paid.^[13]
8. (literary) A gentle gliding flow, as of water.^[4][12]

Verb

1. To fall into error or a lower standard; to backslide.^[14][4]
2. To slip or sink gradually into a state: The old man lapsed into silence.^[14][4][13]
3. To come to an end, or become void, through neglect or the passing of time: She let her membership lapse.^[13][14][4]
4. Of time, to pass.^[4][9]

Word family

• lapser
• time-lapse
• lapsible
• unlapsing
• lapse rate

Related words

• collapse
• elapse
• relapse
• prolapse
• lapsus
• labile

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
7. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
8. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
9. ^ a b c d e f Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
10. ^ a b Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
11. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
12. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
13. ^ a b c d e f g h i Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
14. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster