Lapse
Dictionary of Terms and Phrases Used in American or English Jurisprudence · Benjamin Vaughan Abbott · 1879
Dictionary of Terms and Phrases Used in American or English Jurisprudence
n. A slip or failure. Lapse, 1 v.: to slip, fail, or pass away from the original destination. Lapsed: that which has failed or passed aside. The noun lapse, as applied to a devise or a legacy, denotes the failure of a testamentary gift through the devisee or legatee dying in the testator's lifetime. As applied to English ecclesiastical tion to a church accrues to the ordinary by the neglect of a patron to present; to the metropolitan, by the neglect of the ordinai-y; and to the crown, by the neglect of the metropolitan.