All 3 Uses

lapse
in
How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents
(Edited)

By then, I was a lapsed Catholic; my sisters and I had been pretty well Americanized since our arrival in this country a decade before, so really, I didn't have a good excuse.
Chpt 1.5

lapsed = no longer practicing
Instead, I did something that even as a lapsed Catholic I still did for good luck on nights before exams.
Chpt 1.5 *
I guessed I'd resolved the soul and sin thing by lapsing from my heavy-duty Catholic background, giving up my immortal soul for a blues kind of soul.
Chpt 1.5 *

lapsing = changing

Definitions:

(1) (lapse as in: a lapse in judgement)
a change in behavior or state--usually undesired such as a temporary failure
The exact meaning of this sense of lapse is often subject to its context:
- example indicating an undesired change in behavior -- "lapsed into alcoholism"
- example indicating that the change was short-term and due to a failure (often of effort or diligence) -- "a lapse in judgment"
- example indicating return to a previous undesired behavior or state -- "lapsed into her old bad habits"
- examples indicating a change in what was occurring where the change is not necessarily negative -- "There was a lapse in the conversation," or "She stopped talking as she lapsed into her own internal world."
(2) (lapse as in: allowed the policy to lapse)
end or terminate -- often of legal rights or of a person's association with an organization
(3) (lapse as in: after the lapse of many hours)
a period of time -- often a period that has passed
(4) (meaning too rare to warrant focus)