RELAPSING • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Relapsing

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/rɪlˈæpsɪŋ/ Listen

verb

Relapse v. i. (past & past part. relapsed; pres. part. relapsing)

To slip or slide back, in a literal sense; to turn back. (Obs.)

To slide or turn back into a former state or practice; to fall back from some condition attained; generally in a bad sense, as from a state of convalescence or amended condition; as, to relapse into a stupor, into vice, or into barbarism; sometimes in a good sense; as, to relapse into slumber after being disturbed. "That task performed, (preachers) relapse into themselves."

(Theol.) To fall from Christian faith into paganism, heresy, or unbelief; to backslide. "They enter into the justified state, and so continue all along, unless they relapse."

adjective

Relapsing adj. Marked by a relapse; falling back; tending to return to a former worse state.

Relapsing fever (Med.), an acute, epidemic, contagious fever, which prevails also endemically in Ireland, Russia, and some other regions. It is marked by one or two remissions of the fever, by articular and muscular pains, and by the presence, during the paroxism of spiral bacterium (Spirochaete) in the blood. It is not usually fatal. Called also famine fever, and recurring fever.

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Etymology of 'Relapsing'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Relapsing" Quotes from Famous Books

... liked the looks of things," said Blake, relapsing into sudden gravity. "He told me that he thought it more than likely we'd all be in the field again ...

— Marion's Faith. • Charles King

... a difficult operation upon an unknown man, who had been picked up unconscious from a fall, and carried to Burnt Ridge Ranch. But although the unfortunate man's life was saved by the operation, he had only momentarily recovered consciousness—relapsing into a semi-idiotic state, which effectively stopped the discovery of any clue to his friends or his identity. As it was evidently an ACCIDENT, which, in that rude community—and even in some more civilized ones—conveyed a vague impression of some contributary ...

— A Sappho of Green Springs • Bret Harte

... defending them," said Lucy, losing her courage, and relapsing into the old chaotic methods. ...

— A Room With A View • E. M. Forster

... is no unhappy stupidity. To be ignorant of evils to come, and forgetful of evils past, is a merciful provision in nature, whereby we digest the mixture of our few and evil days, and, our delivered senses not relapsing into cutting remembrances, our sorrows are not kept raw by ...

— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume III (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland I • Francis W. Halsey

... itself almost miraculously. Now and then, his heart would cease to throb, and his pulses would be as cold as a dead man's. Directly life would begin anew, the face would flush up effulgently, the eyes open and brighten, and soon relapsing, stillness re-asserted, would again be dispossessed by the same magnificent triumph of man over mortality. Finally the fussy little doctor arrived, in time to be useless. He probed the wound to see if the ball were not in it, and shook his head ...

— The Life, Crime and Capture of John Wilkes Booth • George Alfred Townsend

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