Lapse vs Relapse - What's the difference?
lapse | relapse |
A temporary failure; a slip.
* Rogers
A decline or fall in standards.
* Rambler
A pause in continuity.
An interval of time between events.
* I. Taylor
A termination of a right etc, through disuse or neglect.
(weather) A marked decrease in air temperature with increasing altitude because the ground is warmer than the surrounding air. This condition usually occurs when skies are clear and between 1100 and 1600 hours, local time. Strong convection currents exist during lapse conditions. For chemical operations, the state is defined as unstable. This condition is normally considered the most unfavorable for the release of chemical agents. See lapse rate.
(legal) A common-law rule that if the person to whom property is ed were to die before the testator, then the gift would be ineffective.
(theology) A fall or apostasy.
To fall away gradually; to subside.
* Jonathan Swift
* Addison
To fall into error or heresy.
* Shakespeare
To slip into a bad habit that one is trying to avoid.
To become void.
To fall or pass from one proprietor to another, or from the original destination, by the omission, negligence, or failure of somebody, such as a patron or legatee.
* Ayliffe
To fall back again; to slide or turn back into a former state or practice.
*
, title=(The Celebrity), chapter=5
, passage=Then we relapsed into a discomfited silence, and wished we were anywhere else. But Miss Thorn relieved the situation by laughing aloud, and with such a hearty enjoyment that instead of getting angry and more mortified we began to laugh ourselves, and instantly felt better.}}
(intransitive, medicine, of a disease) To recur; to worsen, be aggravated.
To slip or slide back physically; to turn back.
The act or situation of relapsing.
(medicine) An occasion when a person becomes ill again after a period of improvement
(obsolete) One who has relapsed, or fallen back into error; a backslider.
As nouns the difference between lapse and relapse
is that lapse is while relapse is the act or situation of relapsing.As a verb relapse is
to fall back again; to slide or turn back into a former state or practice.lapse
English
Noun
(en noun)- to guard against those lapses and failings to which our infirmities daily expose us
- The lapse to indolence is soft and imperceptible.
- Francis Bacon was content to wait the lapse of long centuries for his expected revenue of fame.
Synonyms
* blooper, blunder, boo-boo, defect, error, fault, faux pas, fluff, gaffe, mistake, slip, stumble, thinkoDerived terms
* time-lapse (common law rule) * anti-lapseVerb
(laps)- 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 lapse in fullness / Is sorer than to lie for need.
- If the archbishop shall not fill it up within six months ensuing, it lapses to the king.
Anagrams
* ----relapse
English
Verb
(relaps)- (Dryden)
Noun
(en noun)- Alas! from what high hope to what relapse / Unlooked for are we fallen! — Milton.