<p><strong>Noun</strong></p><ul><li>an accidental or temporary decline or deviation from an expected or accepted condition or state; a temporary falling or slipping from a previous standard: a lapse of justice.</li><li>a slip or error, often of a trivial sort; failure: a lapse of memory.</li><li>an interval or passage of time; elapsed period: a lapse of ten minutes before the program resumed.</li><li>a moral fall, as from rectitude or virtue.</li><li>a fall or decline to a lower grade, condition, or degree; descent; regression: a lapse into savagery.</li><li>the act of falling, slipping, sliding, etc., slowly or by degrees.</li><li>a falling into disuse.</li><li>Insurance: discontinuance of coverage resulting from nonpayment of a premium; termination of a policy.</li><li>Law: the termination of a right or privilege through neglect to exercise it or through failure of some contingency.</li><li>Meteorology: lapse rate.</li><li>Archaic: a gentle, downward flow, as of water.</li></ul><p><strong>Verb</strong></p><ul><li>(used without object) to fall or deviate from a previous standard; fail to maintain a normative level: Toward the end of the book the author lapsed into bad prose.</li><li>to come to an end; stop: We let our subscription to that magazine lapse.</li><li>to fall, slip, or sink; subside: to lapse into silence.</li><li>to fall into disuse: The custom lapsed after a period of time.</li><li>to deviate or abandon principles, beliefs, etc.: to lapse into heresy.</li><li>to fall spiritually, as an apostate: to lapse from grace.</li><li>to pass away, as time; elapse.</li><li>Law: to become void, as a legacy to someone who dies before the testator.</li><li>to cease being in force; terminate: Your insurance policy will lapse after 30 days.</li></ul><p><strong>End of Response</strong></p>