relapse

Etymology

The verb is inherited from Middle English relapsen,^[2][3] borrowed from Latin relāpsus, the past participle of relābor (“to slip back, slide back, sink back”),^{[4][5][6][7][2]} formed from re- (“back”) and lābor (“to slip, slide”), the source of lapse;^[4][5][8][9] Merriam-Webster connects the Latin verb with sleep.^[6] The nouns are borrowed from Middle French relaps, recorded from 1384, for a relapsed person,^[7] and its source relapsus, used of a relapsed heretic and, since 1324 in British sources, of a falling back into error or sin;^[7] Etymonline and the Shorter Oxford take the noun of action partly from the verb.^[4][10]

Earliest recorded meaning

As a noun, a person who has fallen back, especially into heresy: 1407, in Thorpe's Examinacion.^[7] The verb, first recorded before 1415, meant to renounce an evil practice,^[2][5] and ben relaps meant to be forsworn.^[2]

Semantic evolution

The word belonged first to the language of the Church: a relapse was someone who had returned to heresy after recanting, and relapsed heretics could be burned.^[7][2] Weekley notes that the verb was used in the 16th century of falling back into heresy.^[11] The sense "to renounce", which goes back to the Latin idea of drawing back from something, did not outlast Middle English.^[7][10] Of illness, the verb is recorded from 1548 and the noun from 1584,^[7] and Etymonline dates the medical noun to the 1580s.^[4] Johnson (1755) gave "fall into vice or errour once forsaken" as the noun's first sense.^[12] In the 19th century the word was applied to share prices that fall back after a rise (1835),^[7] and later to a return to drink or drugs after a period of abstinence, the noun from 1874 and the verb from 1901.^[7]

Timeline

• 1407 – noun, a relapsed person, especially a heretic.^[7]
• c. 1450 – verb, to renounce, forswear (obsolete).^[7][2]
• c. 1475 – noun, a falling back into error or sin.^[7] Etymonline dates this sense to the mid-15th century.^[4]
• 1548 – verb, to fall ill again after a recovery.^[7]
• 1563 – verb, to fall back into error, sin or heresy.^[7]
• 1584 – noun, a worsening of a patient's condition after a recovery.^[7][4]
• 1593 – verb, to sink into a worse state or activity.^[7]
• 1835 – verb, of shares, to fall back in price.^[7]
• 1874 – noun, a return to an addiction.^[7]

Meanings

Verb

1. To become ill again after a period of recovery; of a disease, to return.^[13][6][7]
2. To slip back into a former bad state, habit or belief; to backslide: After two sober years he relapsed.^[13][6][7]
3. To sink or lapse into a quieter or worse state: The town relapsed into obscurity.^[6][7]
4. (obsolete) To renounce or forswear an evil practice.^[7][10][2]

Noun

1. A return of an illness or its symptoms after an apparent recovery.^[13][6][7]
2. The act of falling back into a former bad state, habit or belief.^[13][6][7]
3. (historical) A person who has relapsed, especially into heresy.^[6][7]

Word family

• relapser
• relapsable
• unrelapsing
• relapsing fever

Related words

• lapse
• collapse
• elapse
• prolapse

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g 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)
3. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
4. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b c Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
6. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
7. ^ 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 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
9. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
10. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
12. ^ 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 Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins