LAPSING • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Lapsing

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/lˈæpsɪŋ/ Listen

verb

Lapse v. t.

To let slip; to permit to devolve on another; to allow to pass. "An appeal may be deserted by the appellant's lapsing the term of law."

To surprise in a fault or error; hence, to surprise or catch, as an offender. (Obs.) "For which, if be lapsed in this place, I shall pay dear."

Lapse v. i. (past & past part. lapsed; pres. part. lapsing)

To pass slowly and smoothly downward, backward, or away; to slip downward, backward, or away; to glide; mostly restricted to figurative uses. "A tendency to lapse into the barbarity of those northern nations from whom we are descended." "Homer, in his characters of Vulcan and Thersites, has lapsed into the burlesque character."

To slide or slip in moral conduct; to fail in duty; to fall from virtue; to deviate from rectitude; to commit a fault by inadvertence or mistake. "To lapse in fullness Is sorer than to lie for need."

(Law)

(a)

To fall or pass from one proprietor to another, or from the original destination, by the omission, negligence, or failure of some one, as a patron, a legatee, etc.

(b)

To become ineffectual or void; to fall. "If the archbishop shall not fill it up within six months ensuing, it lapses to the king."

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Etymology of 'Lapsing'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Lapsing" Quotes from Famous Books

... Messrs. Boardman and Warner can oversee your local Medical Board and keep the institution from lapsing into the dry rot ...

— The Midnight Passenger • Richard Henry Savage

... near the wrecked ship while Manulito prowled the haunted corridors and cabins in his space suit, planning his booby trap. At night he drew diagrams on pieces of bark and discussed the possibility of this or that device, sometimes lapsing into technicalities his companions could not follow. But Travis was well satisfied that Manulito knew ...

— The Defiant Agents • Andre Alice Norton

... struggle seemed to be lapsing into stalemate. The liberated Peloponnesos had failed to propagate the revolution through the remainder of the Ottoman Empire; the Ottoman Government had equally failed to reconquer the Peloponnesos by military invasion. This season's operations ...

— The Balkans - A History Of Bulgaria--Serbia--Greece--Rumania--Turkey • Nevill Forbes, Arnold J. Toynbee, D. Mitrany, D.G. Hogarth

... and Jew, Roman and Greek—such evermore the record; Mix'd glory and shame, still lapsing into greed, From conquest and from triumph, into fall! The glory that we see exchanged for guilt Might yet be glory. There were pride enough, And emulous ambition to achieve,— Both generous powers, when coupled with endowment, To do the work of ...

— War Poetry of the South • Various

... to state that the greatest of the native sovereigns more than once reduced the extramural Tartars to subjection. Between the two races there existed an almost unceasing conflict, which had the effect of civilizing the one and of preventing the other from lapsing ...

— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIV • John Lord

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