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A gliding, slipping, or gradual falling; an unobserved or imperceptible progress or passing away,; -- restricted usually to immaterial things, or to figurative uses. The lapse to indolence is soft and imperceptible. Rambler. Bacon was content to wait the lapse of long centuries for his expected revenue of fame. I. Tayl…

Having slipped downward, backward, or away; having lost position, privilege, etc., by neglect; -- restricted to figurative uses. Once more I will renew His lapsed powers, though forfeit. Milton.

The angular distance of a heavenly body from the ecliptic. Ascending latitude, Circle of latitude, Geographical latitude, etc. See under Ascending. Circle, etc. -- High latitude, that part of the earth's surface near either pole, esp. that part within either the arctic or the antarctic circle. -- Low latitude, that p…

A movement (usually involuntary) of the muscles of the face, particularly of the lips, with a peculiar expression of the eyes, indicating merriment, satisfaction, or derision, and usually attended by a sonorous and interrupted expulsion of air from the lungs. See Laugh, v. i. The act of laughter, which is a sweet contr…

by John Kepler. They are these: (1) The orbit of a planet with respect to the sun is an ellipse, the sun being in one of the foci. (2) The areas swept over by a vector drawn from the sun to a planet are proportioned to the times of describing them. (3) The squares of the times of revolution of two planets are in the ra…

nt of or around a house) covered with grass kept closely mown. Lawn mower, a machine for clipping the short grass of lawns. -- Lawn tennis, a variety of the game of tennis, played in the open air, sometimes upon a lawn, instead of in a tennis court. See Tennis.

. [Archaic] Spenser. Thou shalt destroy them that speak leasing. Ps. v. 6. Blessed be the lips that such a leasing told. Fairfax. Leasing making (Scots Law), the uttering of lies or libels upon the personal character of the sovereign, his court, or his family. Bp. Burnet.

, in America, a plant (Allium tricoccum) with a cluster of ovoid bulbs and large oblong elliptical leaves.

ors themselves had taken an oath of abjuration of his Majesty's person and family. E. Phillips.

See Lipothymic.

lar in all their known properties to cathode rays. So called from the German physicist Philipp Lenard (b. 1862), who first described them.

A muscle that serves to raise some part, as the lip or the eyelid.

or casualty, more or less probable; -- with to and an infinitive or noun; as, liable to slip; liable to accident.

; as: (a) Libration in longitude, that which, depending on the place of the moon in its elliptic orbit, causes small portions near the eastern and western borders alternately to appear and disappear each month.

Not of the legal, standard, or usual weight; clipped; diminished; as, light coin.

Of or pertaining to a natural order of which the lily, tulip, and hyacinth are well-known examples.

erful tune. The housewife went about her work, or spun at her wheel, with a lilt upon her lips. J. C. Shairp.

ian name for seaweeds. Over sixty kinds are used as food, and have species names, as Limu Lipoa, Limu palawai, etc.

nt (Zoöl.), the ant-lion. -- Lion dog (Zoöl.), a fancy dog with a flowing mane, usually clipped to resemble a lion's mane. -- Lion lizard (Zoöl.), the basilisk. -- Lion's share, all, or nearly all; the best or largest part; -- from Æsop's fable of the lion hunting in company with certain smaller beasts, and appropri…

and very beautiful trees of North America, having smooth, shining leaves, and handsome, tuliplike flowers; tulip tree; whitewood; -- called also canoewood. Liriodendron tulipifera is the only extant species, but there were several others in the Cretaceous epoch.