From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishlapse into something phrasal verb1 lapse into unconsciousness/silence/sleep etcBECOME to go into a quiet or less active state He lapsed into a coma and died two days later. Alison lapsed into puzzled silence.2 START DOING somethingto begin to behave or speak in a way that you did before She lapsed back into her old ways. Occasionally he lapsed into his native German.3 START DOING somethingto get into a worse state or become worse Following his death, the Empire lapsed into chaos. His poetry often lapses into sentimentality. → lapse→ See Verb table
Examples from the Corpus
lapse into • A mysterious apple laced with morphine causes Snow White to lapse into a coma.• Mr. Flannery Is there not a grave danger of the former Soviet Union lapsing into anarchy?• Devastating crises may shortly overtake us, leading inevitably to a lapse into barbarism.• She had lapsed into gloomy self-absorption, perhaps in reaction to Golding's interrogatory methods.• The one thing you can not afford to do is give up and lapse into helpless, complaining Stage 5 mode.• He also demonstrates how hard it is to maintain this view, and how easy it is to lapse into logocentric assumptions.• Again, I lapse into metaphor.• He can lapse into playground language at moments of stress, or even, at one point, some pompous Hancockian self-pity.lapse into unconsciousness/silence/sleep etc• But ultimately, words fail them and they lapse into silence.• Without my prompting, Jack often lapsed into silence.• Soon after that she would lapse into sleep, then unconsciousness, then a state of deep coma.• I would talk and laugh with my companions but withdraw, lapsing into silence, when I was offered any food.From Longman Business Dictionarylapse into something phrasal verb [transitive] to begin to be in a bad stateThe economy lapsed deeper into recession.The stock market lapsed into a broad decline today. → lapse→ See Verb table 