lapsus
Americannoun
noun
Etymology
Origin of lapsus
1660–70; < Latin lāpsus; see lapse
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Reminded that technically the war was over for Russia, Kisselev confessed a "lapsus linguae."
From Time Magazine Archive
![]()
“Ubi lapsus quid feci,” said the Dominie; “I spoke of thy musical tongue; and, furthermore, I spoke alle-gori-cal-ly.”
From Jacob Faithful by Frederick Marryat
The artist is a sort of impassioned proof-reader, blue-pencilling the lapsus calami of God.
From Damn! A Book of Calumny by H. L. (Henry Louis) Mencken
This should be Fort Clark, not Fort Leavenworth—an evident lapsus calami.
From Travels in the Interior of North America, Part I, (Being Chapters I-XV of the London Edition, 1843) Early Western Travels, 1748-1846, Volume XXII by Alexander Philipp Maximilian
He could hardly have known of the two G's, from the sound; but the omission of the cross-bar from the one that was de rigueur was certainly a lapsus calami, and a serious one.
From When Ghost Meets Ghost by William Frend De Morgan
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.