Word.ws English Dictionary

lapsus oculi

Syllables: lap·sus oc·u·li/ˌlæpsəs ˈɒkjʊlaɪ/US/ˌlæpsəs ˈɑkjəˌlaɪ/

lapsus oculi noun: an error that results from looking in the wrong place, especially one that occurs while copying or translating a body of text.

Noun

lapsus oculi (plural lapsus oculi)

  1. (formal, rare) An error that results from looking in the wrong place, especially one that occurs while copying or translating a body of text.
    • Oh, a mere lapsus oculi. The Doctor's optics were not quite so sound, as he imagined.1828, “Dialogue II. The Convex Lens.”, in Optics, on the Principle of Images, without Material Light, Rays and Refraction. […], London: […] [Leech and Cheetham] for Longman, Rees and Co.; Manchester...
    • [T]he name Tetragonopterus was due to a lapsus oculi of [Georges] Cuvier and never appeared in that form till 1815; […]1896, Theodore Gill, “Note on the Nomenclature of the Pœciloid Fishes”, in Marcus Benjamin, editor, Proceedings of the United States National Museum, volume XVIII, number 1060, Washington, D.C....

Examples of lapsus oculi in a sentence

  • If, on the other hand, it is the local reservoir or a passing pantechnicon, he will probably regret his lapsus oculi (I think).1939, William Heath Robinson, K[enneth] R[obert] G[ordon] Browne, “Road Sense and Etiquette”, in How to Be a Motorist (Vintage Words of...
  • Was it a simple lapsus oculi on the part of the translator, a kind of scribal error that led to an involuntary deletion?1998, Norma Bouchard, Veronica Pravadelli, editors, Umberto Eco’s Alternative: The Politics of Culture and the Ambiguities of...

Forms of lapsus oculi

plurallapsus oculi

Origin of lapsus oculi

Unadapted borrowing from Latin lāpsus oculī (literally “slip of the eye”), from lāpsus (“slipping; (figurative, rare) error”) + oculī (genitive of oculus (“eye”)).

Questions about lapsus oculi

What does lapsus oculi mean?
Lapsus oculi means an error that results from looking in the wrong place, especially one that occurs while copying or translating a body of text.
How do you use lapsus oculi in a sentence?
If, on the other hand, it is the local reservoir or a passing pantechnicon, he will probably regret his lapsus oculi (I think).
What part of speech is lapsus oculi?
Lapsus oculi is a noun.
How do you pronounce lapsus oculi?
Lapsus oculi is pronounced /ˌlæpsəs ˈɒkjʊlaɪ/ (UK).
What is the plural of lapsus oculi?
The plural of lapsus oculi is lapsus oculi.

Words near lapsus oculi in the dictionary

  1. lapsus digiti
  2. lapsus digitorum
  3. lapsus linguae
  4. lapsus linguæ
  5. lapsus memoriae
  6. lapsus oculi
  7. lapsus pennæ
  8. lapsus plumae
  9. lapsus plumæ
  10. lapt
  11. lapta

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: lapsus oculi (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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