lapse

lapse is a 5-letter English word with 19 senses as noun, intransitive verb, transitive verb, and verb in the JumbleFix dictionary. One common meaning is: A gliding, slipping, or gradual falling; an unobserved or imperceptible progress or passing away,; -- restricted usually to immaterial things, or to figurative uses. Face value is 7 in Scrabble and 9 in Words With Friends. Use the entries below when you need a playable sense, a nearby word, or another arrangement of the same letters.

5 letters · Scrabble 7 · Words With Friends 9 · 19 senses

Definitions

1. noun. A gliding, slipping, or gradual falling; an unobserved or imperceptible progress or passing away,; -- restricted usually to immaterial things, or to figurative uses.
2. noun. A slip; an error; a fault; a failing in duty; a slight deviation from truth or rectitude.
3. noun. The termination of a right or privilege through neglect to exercise it within the limited time, or through failure of some contingency; hence, the devolution of a right or privilege.
4. noun. A fall or apostasy.
5. intransitive verb. To pass slowly and smoothly downward, backward, or away; to slip downward, backward, or away; to glide; -- mostly restricted to figurative uses.
6. intransitive verb. 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.
7. intransitive verb. 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.
8. intransitive verb. To become ineffectual or void; to fall.
9. transitive verb. To let slip; to permit to devolve on another; to allow to pass.
10. transitive verb. To surprise in a fault or error; hence, to surprise or catch, as an offender.
11. noun. a failure to maintain a higher state

    Synonyms: backsliding, lapsing, relapse, relapsing, reversion, reverting

12. noun. a mistake resulting from inattention

    Synonyms: oversight

13. noun. a break or intermission in the occurrence of something

    "a lapse of three weeks between letters"

14. verb. go back to bad behavior

    "Those who recidivate are often minor criminals"

    Synonyms: recidivate, regress, relapse, retrogress

15. verb. drop to a lower level, as in one's morals or standards

    Synonyms: backslide

16. verb. end, at least for a long time

    "The correspondence lapsed"

17. verb. pass into a specified state or condition

    "He sank into nirvana"

    Synonyms: pass, sink

18. verb. pass by

    "three years elapsed"

    Synonyms: elapse, pass

19. verb. let slip

    "He lapsed his membership"

Synonyms

backsliding, lapsing, relapse, relapsing, reversion, reverting, oversight, recidivate, regress, retrogress, backslide, pass, sink, elapse

Anagrams

Other playable words that use exactly the letters in lapse:

elaps, leaps, lepas, pales, peals, pleas, salep, saple, sepal, slape, spale, speal

Common word forms

lapsed, lapser, lapses, lapsing

Words from these letters

If you are holding these tiles, the unscrambler for LAPSE lists every valid word you can make from the same letters, including shorter plays.