lapse

/læps/

/læps/

Other forms: lapsed; lapses; lapsing

A lapse is a temporary slip, failure or break in continuity. If you’re normally polite, a lapse in manners could make you forget to say “please” and “thank you.”

First used to imply a “slip of the memory,” the noun lapse evolved in the sixteenth century from the Latin lapsus, meaning “a slipping and falling, falling into error.” The connotation of “a moral slip” developed later, and the verb form came into existence even later than that. Behaving badly one day when you're usually on your best behavior is a lapse; behaving badly again after a short stint being well-mannered means you're lapsing back into nasty old habits.

Definitions of lapse

1. verb

   drop to a lower level, as in one's morals or standards
   synonyms: backslide

   type of:

   drop away, drop off, fall away, slip

   get worse
2. verb

   go back to bad behavior
   synonyms: fall back, recidivate, regress, relapse, retrogress

   type of:

   regress, retrovert, return, revert, turn back

   go back to a previous state
3. verb

   pass into a specified state or condition
   synonyms: pass, sink

   type of:

   move

   go or proceed from one point to another
4. verb

   let slip
   “He lapsed his membership”

   type of:

   forego, forfeit, forgo, give up, throw overboard, waive

   lose (s.th.) or lose the right to (s.th.) by some error, offense, or crime
5. verb

   pass by
   synonyms: elapse, glide by, go along, go by, pass, slide by, slip away, slip by

   types:

   fell, fly, vanish

   pass away rapidly

   type of:

   advance, go on, march on, move on, pass on, progress

   move forward, also in the metaphorical sense
6. noun

   a failure to maintain a higher state
   synonyms: backsliding, lapsing, relapse, relapsing, reversion, reverting

   types:

   recidivism

   habitual relapse into crime

   type of:

   failure

   an act that fails
7. noun

   a mistake resulting from inattention
   synonyms: oversight

   type of:

   error, fault, mistake

   a wrong action attributable to bad judgment or ignorance or inattention
8. noun

   a break or intermission in the occurrence of something
   “a lapse of three weeks between letters”

   type of:

   break, intermission, interruption, pause, suspension

   a time interval during which there is a temporary cessation of something
9. verb

   end, at least for a long time
   “The correspondence lapsed”

   type of:

   cease, end, finish, stop, terminate

   have an end, in a temporal, spatial, or quantitative sense; either spatial or metaphorical