elapse

UK/ɪˈlæps/US/ɪˈlæps/

verbC1Very rare — outside the 30,000 commonest English words, so you will meet it in writing rather than in speechneutral

Other forms: elapsed, elapses, elapsing

To elapse is to pass, as time does. Let a week elapse, allow time to elapse, watch the hours elapse.

Only time elapses, which is unusual for a verb of that kind. The word is nearly always used of a period that had to pass before something could happen.

Definitions of elapse

1verbelapseTo pass, as time does.C1
“Three years elapsed before anybody looked at the file.”

elapse is an action.

Where it comes from

Latin elabi, to slip away, from e plus labi, to slip, the root of lapse and collapse.

Latin
elapsus
Middle French
elapser
English, today
elapse

From Middle French elapser, from Latin elapsus. From Middle French elapser, from Latin elapsus.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practise this word

elapse in the wild

During normal operation, the computer regularly restarts the watchdog timer to prevent it from elapsing, or timing out.
Watchdog timer
If, due to a hardware fault or program error, the computer fails to restart the watchdog, the timer will elapse and generate a timeout signal.
Watchdog timer
Sometimes two states may be printed on the same day, sometimes several years may elapse between them.
State (printmaking)
Another twenty two years would elapse until a decree of 14 March 1922 added a rosette to the ribbon of the medal to denote an act of bravery.
Honour medal for firefighters
The vote had been set for January 2013, but was put back a month to allow a full year to elapse after the reform of election rules.
2013 Ecuadorian general election

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

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