LAPSING • DICCIONARIO INGLES.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

... long scene the tender stream of melody flows on, never lapsing into anything approaching prettiness or feebleness, flooding us with an overwhelming sense of a far-away past, while full utterance is found for Eva's anxiety, then her despair, and her wish, timidly spoken, to give herself to Sachs ...

— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman

... roused himself. "It's a queer thing," he began a propos of nothing, abstractedly toying with his peche Melba and lapsing into thoughtful ...

— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, May 5, 1920 • Various

... which it is strangely unlikely but some will be out of order; and yet, if any one be so, the whole fabric falls of necessity to the ground: and he that shall put them together, and maturely consider all the possible ways of lapsing and nullifying a priesthood in the Church of Rome, will be very inclinable to think that it is a hundred to one, that among a hundred seeming priests, there is not one true one; nay, that it is not a thing very improbable ...

— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... declared that he would ask the Grand Inquisitor of France for an authorisation which should hold good for the diocese of Beauvais. Meanwhile he consented to act in order to satisfy his own conscience and to prevent the proceedings from lapsing, which, in the opinion of all, must have ensued had the trial been instituted without the concurrence of the Holy Inquisition.[2207] All preliminary difficulties were now removed. The Maid was cited to appear on Wednesday, the 21st ...

— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France

... and merciless dogma, which we trust will soon cease to darken and distort the beneficent character of God. Indeed it might have been evident to him before that in looking upon herself as a castaway, Jane's sensitive spirit was gradually lapsing into the gloomy horrors of predestination. But this blindness of the father to such a tendency was very natural in a man to whose eye familiarity with the doctrine had removed its deformity. The old man looked upon her countenance with an expression of mute affliction almost verging ...

— Jane Sinclair; Or, The Fawn Of Springvale - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton

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