LAPSED

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does lapsed mean? 

• LAPSED (adjective)
  The adjective LAPSED has 1 sense:

1. no longer active or practicing

  Familiarity information: LAPSED used as an adjective is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• LAPSED (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

No longer active or practicing

Synonyms:

lapsed; nonchurchgoing

Context example:

a lapsed Catholic

Similar:

irreligious (hostile or indifferent to religion)

 Context examples 

Possibly it was the fraction of a second, but I had no knowledge of how long an interval had lapsed before I was myself again.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

That afternoon lapsed in peace and harmony; and in the evening Bessie told me some of her most enchanting stories, and sang me some of her sweetest songs.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

I had lapsed into a stupid state; but I was recovering a little and looking forward to Steerforth, albeit Mr. Creakle loomed behind him.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Bill grunted his disagreement with the diagnosis, and lapsed into silence.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

Registered nurses who have not achieved CCRN certification status or whose CCRN status has lapsed are not authorized to use the CCRN credential.

(Certification in Critical Care Nursing, NCI Thesaurus)

Far more potent were the memories of his heredity that gave things he had never seen before a seeming familiarity; the instincts (which were but the memories of his ancestors become habits) which had lapsed in later days, and still later, in him, quickened and become alive again.

(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)

When at last she left you, you lapsed at once into deep reverie: you betook yourself slowly to pace the gallery.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

During my recital, she kept her eyes on Mr. Dick, who I thought would have gone to sleep but for that, and who, whensoever he lapsed into a smile, was checked by a frown from my aunt.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

What yawns and dozes I lapsed into, in spite of all my care; what starts I came out of concealed sleeps with; what answers I never got, to little observations that I rarely made; what a blank space I seemed, which everybody overlooked, and yet was in everybody's way; what a heavy relief it was to hear Miss Murdstone hail the first stroke of nine at night, and order me to bed!

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Gatsby took an arm of each of us and moved forward into the restaurant whereupon Mr. Wolfshiem swallowed a new sentence he was starting and lapsed into a somnambulatory abstraction.

(The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald)