laps-, lab-

1. Susceptible to a momentary fault or failure in behavior or morality: Meg's habit of brushing her teeth was quite lapsable at times and her dentist had to fill some cavities each time she went to see him.
2. Regarding a break in the continuity of something; Jim's attention in class turned out to be lapsable and he missed part of what his teacher was talking about.
3. A passage of time: Somehow there was a lapsable interval following the accident and Mary couldn't remember what had happened.
4. Liable to become null and void through disuse, negligence, or death: Chuck forgot that his membership was lapsible, and it expired at the end of the year.

The rate at which the temperature of the atmosphere falls as altitude increases.

1. No longer committed to something, especially religious faith or observance.
2. Expired or terminated.

1. A person who has a temporary failure; a slip.
2. Someone who has a decline or a fall in standards.
3. Pauses in continuity.

From Latin, a slipping, a fall.

1. A slip of the pen or an error in writing from Latin calamarius, "pertaining to a pen", from calamus, "reed, pen", from Greek kalamos.
2. A slip of the pen, an unintentional writing error; especially, in spelling taxonomic names.

A click on the image will take you to the series of illustrated quizzes which will appear in random order or you may click on this image quiz link.

An embarrassing example of lapsus linguae.

Slip of the tongue; from Latin lapsus, a slip; an error; chiefly used in Latin phrases. English pronunciation: LAP suhs LING gwee.

This shows that a lapsus linguae can be embarrassing, to say the least. The situation could also be considered a lapsus memoriae or a "lapse of memory".

There is one more mental lapse, one that involves carelessness in writing: lapsus calami or a slip of the pen. The word calamus was a reed formerly used as a pen.

A lapsus linguae can result from laliophobia or lalophobia

In the world of human relations, a person can suffer from laliophobia (lalophobia); that is, a terror of talking or of stuttering when trying to talk.

An individual's speech difficulty may be aggravated by situations that arise from anxieties or fears of self-consciousness.

Of course, there is also the other condition called, lalomania, a compulsion or abnormal desire to talk excessively. Neither situation is considered desirable in human relations.

See this special presentation about public personalities who have committed various forms of lapsus linguae.

A defect of the memory, sometimes considered to be a symptom of a mental illness: A lapsus memoriae is an involuntary mistake that is made while writing or speaking.

In literature, a number of different types of lapsus memoriae are named depending on the mode of correspondence:

1. lapsus linguae: a slip of the tongue.
2. lapsus calami: a slip of the pen.

With the variation of lapsus clavis: slip of the typewriter.

3. lapsus manus: slip of the hand, similar to lapsus calami.

An exaggerated terror of tornadoes or hurricanes: Individuals who have experienced and survived a severe storm like a twister, sometimes suffer from a post-traumatic stress disorder and develop a lilapsophbia.

He has planted one better than the one fallen.

Motto on the Seal of the State of South Carolina, U.S.A., and on the Great Seal of the Northwest Territory, USA.

Incapable of being folded together into a more convenient and compact shape: Some balcony chairs made of metal are noncollapsible and cannot be flattened in order to store them in the corner of the basement.

The protrusion of the iris through an injury in the cornea of the eye.

To fall or to slip out of place; such as, of a bodily organ or part.