How to Use lapse into in a Sentence

lapse into

phrasal verb
  • To put the time lapsed into further perspective, Mourning is now 53, Hardaway 56.
    Ira Winderman, Sun Sentinel, 27 Apr. 2023
  • The meat has a heavy weighting in the basket of food prices, which was a big contributor to July’s lapse into consumer deflation.
    Time, 23 Aug. 2023
  • But—as the frankly silly breadsticks foreshadowed—the pomp of the place never lapses into tedium.
    Helen Rosner, The New Yorker, 17 Mar. 2024
  • The low-key look is fine by us, but California four-by aficionados will probably lapse into chrome withdrawal.
    Rich Ceppos, Car and Driver, 1 July 2023
  • Musk would often lapse into long reflective reveries, and the biographer would learn not to interrupt.
    Margot Roosevelt, Los Angeles Times, 12 Sep. 2023
  • There have been various points, in all of those incarnations, when Chelsea has veered perilously close to lapsing into self-parody.
    Rory Smith, New York Times, 18 Apr. 2023
  • Back on the homefront, Zora lapses into blathering self-absorption and even Billie, the nurse, comments on her need to devote more quality time to her daughter.
    Sheri Linden, The Hollywood Reporter, 7 Sep. 2023
  • Ruscha made drawings using gunpowder and paintings of maple syrup and beans, but few image-makers have so rarely lapsed into gimmickry, and even fewer have got such consistent laughs.
    Jackson Arn, The New Yorker, 2 Oct. 2023
  • In the following days his mind lapsed into confusion, yet his secretary faithfully recorded his words.
    Colin Thubron, The New York Review of Books, 19 Jan. 2023
  • During groupthink, members lapse into consensus thinking and agree with each other rather than bringing more ideas forward.
    Lorraine Dowler, The Conversation, 15 Aug. 2023
  • Despite a few lapses into lumpy melodrama, Yamazki’s thoughtful script holds firm and is dotted with delightful humor at just the right moments.
    Richard Kuipers, Variety, 22 Nov. 2023
  • This distinction is what keeps Rawls’s view from lapsing into inhumanity.
    Elizabeth Barber, Harper's Magazine, 8 Feb. 2024
  • Amazon announced a new conversation mode for its Alexa speakers using cutting edge chatbot tech; in an onstage demonstration, the tool lapsed into long pauses between answers.
    Gerrit De Vynck, Washington Post, 30 Sep. 2023
  • But if its sympathies and its politics are unsurprising, the movie itself seldom lapses into obviousness.
    Justin Chang, Los Angeles Times, 21 Apr. 2023
  • With Ukrainian officials anxious that an unimpressive counteroffensive might undercut their case for further aid, Cleverly urged Washington not to lapse into war fatigue.
    Joel Gehrke, Washington Examiner, 9 May 2023
  • This dark and princely look occasionally lapsed into the apparently primitive and absolutely primal.
    Luke Leitch, Vogue, 3 July 2023
  • The movie falters here and there, lapsing into sentimentality—with accompanying gushy music—during a wedding scene, and that in-person confrontation between Monk and Sintara happens only because Jefferson has overcomplicated the story’s plot.
    Stephanie Zacharek, Time, 15 Dec. 2023
  • This series respects Asimov's sweeping visionary ideas without lapsing into slavish reverence and over-pontification.
    Jennifer Ouellette, Ars Technica, 11 May 2023
  • Unlike all his predecessors going back to Franklin Roosevelt, Trump appears to be an inveterate isolationist who occasionally lapses into martial fantasies about exterminating terrorists.
    Jonathan Kay, Foreign Affairs, 15 Aug. 2017

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'lapse into.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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