What's the difference between blunder and lapse?

Blunder


Definition:

  • (v. i.) To make a gross error or mistake; as, to blunder in writing or preparing a medical prescription.
  • (v. i.) To move in an awkward, clumsy manner; to flounder and stumble.
  • (v. t.) To cause to blunder.
  • (v. t.) To do or treat in a blundering manner; to confuse.
  • (n.) Confusion; disturbance.
  • (n.) A gross error or mistake, resulting from carelessness, stupidity, or culpable ignorance.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) The score should have been tied at 2-2 and the natural German retort that one of Geoff Hurst's goals in the 1966 World Cup was imaginary hardly makes the blunder of officials more palatable in Bloemfontein.
  • (2) The catalogue of blunders produced an angry response from congressmen in both parties who questioned the competence of Pierson, who was herself brought in to clean up the elite unit after earlier scandals in which drunken officers were found passed out during a presidential trip to Amsterdam and visiting prostitutes in Colombia.
  • (3) But it is not clear whether that will be enough to save McChrystal's job after what is the latest of a series of political blunders.
  • (4) Anthony King is professor of government at Essex University and co-author with Ivor Crewe of The Blunders of Our Governments, to be published next week
  • (5) From millions of BBC words, blunders and scandals are relatively few.
  • (6) That should mean, among other changes from Monday’s win at Hull , that Danny Welbeck returns up front even if Olivier Giroud relocated the net after a couple of months blundering about in the dark.
  • (7) But after David de Gea's blunder allowed Phil Bardsley's 119th-minute shot to slip in, Javier Hernández grabbed a lifeline with a strike seconds later to take the tie into the shootout.
  • (8) Blunders by hospital staff which leave newborn babies brain-damaged in the first few days of their lives are set to cost the NHS more than £235m, official figures reveal.
  • (9) A horrendous blunder by Mertesacker presents the ball to Aluko, who goes around Fabianksi.
  • (10) Results indicated an effect of sex identification; the male blunderer was derogated most by male subjects (n = 34) and the female most by female subjects (n = 34).
  • (11) The Obama administration on Monday approved Shell’s plan to resume drilling for oil and gas in the treacherous and fragile waters off the coast of Alaska , three years after the Anglo-Dutch oil giant was forced to suspend operations following a series of potentially dangerous blunders.
  • (12) They've conceded only one goal due to a goalie blunder (against admittedly limited opposition) and not lost.
  • (13) "In a post-Fukushima environment where nuclear planning is being halted in Germany and Japan it seems bizarre that the (UK) government is blundering ahead with disposing of nuclear waste in the most absurdly inappropriate place," she said.
  • (14) The plot of Emma turns on Frank Churchill's "blunder" in mentioning the likelihood of Mr Perry, the local apothecary, "setting up his carriage".
  • (15) A brief inquest a year later did not expose the hospital's blunder.
  • (16) The sport’s global governing body has admitted that Joubert blundered by awarding the Wallabies the last-gasp penalty that Bernard Foley kicked to seize a 35-34 victory at Twickenham on Sunday, robbing Scotland of a place in the World Cup semi-finals.
  • (17) Inevitably the commentators (and so far in my researches, they were all women) pondered on Lawson's motivation, and whether this decision was a style blunder, a "betrayal of her own brand", or a defiant and admirable insistence on privacy for her body.
  • (18) It's hard to watch these executions and not realise that these blunders are bound to happen,” he said.
  • (19) In a front-page comment piece, Aluf Benn, the editor-in-chief of Haaretz, wrote: "Instead of hushing up the blunder, [gag orders] merely shine a spotlight on it.
  • (20) He’s not in power yet, so he still gets to blunder around lobbing out daft policies willy-nilly in the hope that one of them will scan.

Lapse


Definition:

  • (v. i.) To become ineffectual or void; to fall.
  • (v. i.) To fall or pass from one proprietor to another, or from the original destination, by the omission, negligence, or failure of some one, as a patron, a legatee, etc.
  • (n.) A gliding, slipping, or gradual falling; an unobserved or imperceptible progress or passing away,; -- restricted usually to immaterial things, or to figurative uses.
  • (n.) A slip; an error; a fault; a failing in duty; a slight deviation from truth or rectitude.
  • (n.) The termination of a right or privilege through neglect to exercise it within the limited time, or through failure of some contingency; hence, the devolution of a right or privilege.
  • (n.) A fall or apostasy.
  • (v. i.) To pass slowly and smoothly downward, backward, or away; to slip downward, backward, or away; to glide; -- mostly restricted to figurative uses.
  • (v. i.) To slide or slip in moral conduct; to fail in duty; to fall from virtue; to deviate from rectitude; to commit a fault by inadvertence or mistake.
  • (v. t.) To let slip; to permit to devolve on another; to allow to pass.
  • (v. t.) To surprise in a fault or error; hence, to surprise or catch, as an offender.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) We had a brief conversation and I said to him he was acting from high honour here, and I said how sorry I was this wasn’t happening in three or four years time..because Barry is a man of honour..and I think he is a very capable premier and I think he has been missed.” Asked whether he had ever met Nick di Girolamo , the prime minister said both he and Mr di Girolamo attended a lot of functions, and “I don’t for a moment say I have never met him but I don’t recall it.” But former federal Liberal MP Ross Cameron sounded much more sceptical about O’Farrell’s memory lapse when speaking to Sky News.
  • (2) The duration and severity of the pulmonary abscess, the method of surgical treatment, the lapse of time after the operation, the course of the restorative processes, complications and concomitant diseases, the degree or respiratory and circulatory insufficiency, the patients' age, profession, and the conditions and character of work are taken into account during examination.
  • (3) In nine patients there was a temporary lapse of supervision.
  • (4) If REpower had waited until it had secured planning permission for the windfarms before it began building the turbine factory, permission would have lapsed before it had had time to supply the turbines.
  • (5) He cited the occurrence in 2011–12 of 326 "never events" – serious safety lapses that should never occur in the NHS, such as surgeons operating on the wrong part of a patient's body – as further proof that the NHS's safety culture was inadequate.
  • (6) Increases in mutant frequency were clearly induced by all eight chemicals, the magnitudes of which were dependent on the chemical, dose, method of dosing, tissue analyzed, and the time lapse between treatment and isolation of DNA.
  • (7) We report observations from time-lapse films of the development of Dictyostelium discoideum (Dd) stained with the vital dye neutral red.
  • (8) (c) In patients with MR and postoperative heart failure, there was a tendency for EF to decrease after a lapse of one month postoperatively.
  • (9) Analysis by time-lapse video microscopy indicates that two processes produce the fibers.
  • (10) In view of the prolonged lapse of time between the initial endocrine manifestations and the eventual diagnosis, even though no cause is apparent in the other three patients, it is suggested that close follow-up be carried out to rule out such a possibility in patients with this endocrine-radiological entity.
  • (11) Quantitative time-lapse videomicroscopy showed that the CT-induced retraction of osteoclasts also involved activation of the PKC pathway and could therefore be induced by phorbol esters.
  • (12) It’s just been a catalogue of disasters – the late nomination, when his party membership lapsed , the [alleged] punch-up.
  • (13) Time-lapse cinemicrography reveals that in clone B ZR-75-1 cells, which are not sensitive to the DNA synthesis-inhibitory effect of IL-6 or to its cell-separating effect on preformed colonies, IL-6 can still block rapid readherence of post-mitotic cells to their neighbors and to the substratum leading to enhanced dispersal of cancer cells into the culture medium.
  • (14) A vertebral occlusion or dissection is a problem of considerable complexity, requiring individualized management depending on the patient's symptomatology, location and nature of the injury, and time lapsed since the injury.
  • (15) On the day I arrive a time lapse of cloud is drifting across the ridge, above a geometry of Inca stairways and terraces cut into a steep, jungly spur above the Apurímac river, 100 miles west of Cusco in southern Peru.
  • (16) We have used fluorescence analogue cytochemistry in conjunction with time lapse recording to study the dynamics of alpha-actinin, a major component of the Z line, during myofibrillogenesis.
  • (17) Measurements of the soluble TNF receptor (sTNF-R) concentrations in healthy individuals at time lapses of 3 months (17 individuals) or 1 year (51 individuals) showed a significant correlation between the first and the second measurements from each individual, implying that individual differences are stable.
  • (18) The dynamic nature of Chlamydia trachomatis inclusions was studied by video and 35 mm time-lapse photomicrography of live cells, and by immunolocalization of inclusions in fixed cells.
  • (19) The authors report on the frequency of family congenital heart disease in a consecutive series of 380 congenital patients, studied in the lapse of one year in the Pediatric Cardiology Service of the National Institute of Cardiology of Mexico.
  • (20) A time lapse cinemicrographic study shows that, at low concentrations, nicotine can speed up cytokinesis and, at high concentrations, prolong the duration of metaphase in HeLa cells.