fail vs lapse

fail

noun
  • A failure (something incapable of success). 

  • A failure, especially of a financial transaction (a termination of an action). 

  • A failure (condition of being unsuccessful). 

  • A failing grade in an academic examination. 

  • Poor quality; substandard workmanship. 

  • A piece of turf cut from grassland. 

verb
  • Not to achieve a particular stated goal. (Usage note: The direct object of this word is usually an infinitive.) 

  • To become unable to meet one's engagements; especially, to be unable to pay one's debts or discharge one's business obligation; to become bankrupt or insolvent. 

  • To receive one or more non-passing grades in academic pursuits. 

  • To give a student a non-passing grade in an academic endeavour. 

  • To be wanting to, to be insufficient for, to disappoint, to desert; to disappoint one's expectations. 

  • To be wanting; to fall short; to be or become deficient in any measure or degree up to total absence. 

  • To neglect. 

  • To be unsuccessful. 

  • Of a machine, etc.: to cease to operate correctly. 

adj
  • Unsuccessful; inadequate; unacceptable in some way. 

lapse

noun
  • A temporary failure; a slip. 

  • 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. 

  • An interval of time between events. 

  • 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 fail and lapse occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )