Adjacent Words

Lapsing definitions

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Webster's 1828 Dictionary

LAPS'ING, ppr. Gliding; flowing; failing; falling to one person through the omission of another.

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

n
1: a failure to maintain a higher state [syn: backsliding, lapse, lapsing, relapse, relapsing, reversion, reverting]

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Lapse Lapse, v. i. [imp. & p. p. Lapsed; p. pr. & vb. n. Lapsing.] 1. 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. --Swift. Homer, in his characters of Vulcan and Thersites, has lapsed into the burlesque character. --Addison. 2. 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. --Shak. 3. (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. --Ayliffe.