lapse

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   a break or intermission in the occurrence of something

   a lapse of three weeks between letters

2. 2
   verb

   end, at least for a long time

   The correspondence lapsed

3. 3
   verb

   pass by

   three years elapsed

4. 4
   verb

   to let slip

   They lapsed their gym membership.

5. 5
   noun

   A temporary failure; a slip.

   memory lapse

6. 6
   noun

   A decline or fall in standards.

   The lapse to indolence is soft and imperceptible, because it is only a mere cessation of activity

7. 7
   noun

   An interval of time between events.

   Still onward winds the dreary way; ⁠I with it; for I long to prove ⁠No lapse of moons can canker Love, Whatever fickle tongues may say.

8. 8
   verb

   To fall away gradually; to subside.

   This perpetual disposition to shorten our words by retrenching the vowels, is nothing else but a tendency to lapse into the barbarity of those northern nations from whom we are descended

Etymology

From Middle French laps, from Latin lāpsus, from lābī (“to slip”). Doublet of lapsus.