1. lapse - Noun
2. lapse - Verb
A gliding, slipping, or gradual falling; an unobserved or imperceptible progress or passing away,; -- restricted usually to immaterial things, or to figurative uses.
A slip; an error; a fault; a failing in duty; a slight deviation from truth or rectitude.
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.
A fall or apostasy.
To pass slowly and smoothly downward, backward, or away; to slip downward, backward, or away; to glide; -- mostly restricted to figurative uses.
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 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.
To become ineffectual or void; to fall.
To let slip; to permit to devolve on another; to allow to pass.
To surprise in a fault or error; hence, to surprise or catch, as an offender.
Source: Webster's dictionaryTime crumbles things everything older under the power of Time and is forgotten through the lapse of Time. Aristotle
No story is the same to us after a lapse of time; or rather we who read it are no longer the same interpreters. George Eliot
No distance of place or lapse of time can lessen the friendship of those who are thoroughly persuaded of each other's worth. Robert Southey
The longest day must have its close -- the gloomiest night will wear on to a morning. An eternal, inexorable lapse of moments is ever hurrying the day of the evil to an eternal night, and the night of the just to an eternal day. Harriet Beecher Stowe
It is one of my faults, that though my tongue is sometimes prompt enough at an answer, there are times when it sadly fails me in framing an excuse; and always the lapse occurs at some crisis, when a facile word or plausible pretext is specially wanted to get me out of painful embarrassment. Charlotte Brontë
The lapse of time uncovers hidden secrets. Muhammad al-Taqi