Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A gliding in or into; entrance as by permeation; influx: used especially of the descent of the Holy Spirit.
  • noun Inspiration; divine influx.
  • noun A falling on; onset.
  • To pass, glide, or slide: usually followed by into.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A gliding in; an immisson or entrance of one thing into another; also, a sudden descent or attack.
  • intransitive verb To fall or glide; to pass; -- usually followed by into.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A gliding in; an immission or entrance of one thing into another.
  • noun A sudden descent or attack.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Latin illapsus.

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Examples

Comments

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  • Rare intr. v., To fall, glide, or slip in.

    August 6, 2008

  • "What moves thee, if the senses stir not? Light/Moves thee from Heaven, spontaneous, self-inform'd;/Or, likelier, gliding down with swift illapse/By will divine."

    --Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy

    Hmm, gliding into something.... I recall driving a Volkswagen on a gusty winter night in upstate New York and gliding off the road into a snowbank. Car, passenger and driver were unharmed in this illapse.

    January 5, 2009


  • Be watchful! The fiend spreads his seed!

    Take care you not nurture that weed

    And sicken perhaps

    From such an illapse.

    'Twould be a most ill lapse indeed.

    August 20, 2015