English
elapse
Elapse comes from Latin elapsus ‘having slipped away’, and goes back to lābor ‘to slip, slide, glide’.
- Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CElābor‘to slip, slide, glide’
- Latin, derivedc. 75 BCE–200 CEēlābor‘to slip or glide away’
- Latin, derivedc. 75 BCE–200 CEelapsus‘having slipped away’
- Middle Frenchc. 1400–1600elapser
- Englishearliest quotation 1837elapse
attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed
Earlier history uncertain.
Lineage
- Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CElābor‘to slip, slide, glide’
- Latin, derivedc. 75 BCE–200 CEēlābor‘to slip or glide away’
- Latin, derivedc. 75 BCE–200 CEelapsus‘having slipped away’
- Middle Frenchc. 1400–1600elapser
- Englishearliest quotation 1837elapse
Earliest quotation: 1837, Letitia Elizabeth Landon, The Remembrance of the Dead: “The week that was yet to elapse, she spent…”
Linked words
through Latin lābor ‘to slip, slide, glide’
labour, collaboration, laboratory, elaborate, lava, collapse, laborious, labile, 10 more
Today it means
verb To pass or move by.
Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word.
Etymograph / Latin lābor / elapse