comma vs lapse

comma

noun
  • A brief interval. 

  • A difference in the calculation of nearly identical intervals by different ways. 

  • In Ancient Greek rhetoric, a short clause, something less than a colon, originally denoted by comma marks. In antiquity it was defined as a combination of words having no more than eight syllables in all. It was later applied to longer phrases, e.g. the Johannine comma. 

  • The punctuation mark ⟨,⟩ used to indicate a set of parts of a sentence or between elements of a list. 

  • A similar-looking subscript diacritical mark. 

  • Any of various nymphalid butterflies of the genus Polygonia, having a comma-shaped white mark on the underwings, especially Polygonia c-album and Polygonia c-aureum of North Africa, Europe, and Asia. 

  • A delimiting marker between items in a genetic sequence. 

verb
  • To place a comma or commas within text; to follow, precede, or surround a portion of text with commas. 

lapse

noun
  • An interval of time between events. 

  • A decline or fall in standards. 

  • A common-law rule that if the person to whom property is willed were to die before the testator, then the gift would be ineffective. 

  • A pause in continuity. 

  • A marked decrease in air temperature with increasing altitude because the ground is warmer than the surrounding air. 

  • A fall or apostasy. 

  • A temporary failure; a slip. 

  • A termination of a right etc., through disuse or neglect. 

  • memory lapse 

verb
  • To fall away gradually; to subside. 

  • To slip into a bad habit that one is trying to avoid. 

  • To become void. 

  • To fall into error or heresy. 

  • To fall or pass from one proprietor to another, or from the original destination, by the omission, negligence, or failure of somebody, such as a patron or legatee. 

How often have the words comma and lapse occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )