Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use elapse in a sentence

16 example sentences · verb

Elapse means to pass or move by. Example: “He allowed a month to elapse before beginning the work.”

Examples of elapse by meaning

verbTo pass or move by.

  • He allowed a month to elapse before beginning the work.
  • Several days elapsed before they met again.
  • Many years elapsed before the success of Kemp Town as a residential district was assured; the foundations of the estate were laid in 1823, but some houses remained untenanted until the 1850s.1952 December, R. C. Riley, “By Rail to Kemp Town”, in Railway Magazine, page 832

More sentences with elapse

  • With a bit of tuning, these cars can run 12-second ETs (elapsed times).From the entry elapsed time
  • Think of adenosine as a chemical barometer that continuously registers the amount of elapsed time since you woke up this morning.2017, Matthew Walker, Why We Sleep, Penguin, published 2018, page 27. From the entry adenosine
  • The comparative advantage the relearners gained from previous acquaintance with a particular maze vanished as the elapsed time approached six months.1981, Lee Joseph Cronbach, Richard E. Snow, Aptitudes and Instructional Methods, page 125. From the entry relearner
  • Some eight years have elapsed since this book was written.1958, Benjamin I. Schwartz, “Preface to the Third Printing”, in Chinese Communism and the Rise of Mao, Harper & Row, published 1967…. From the entry world-wide
  • At best, a considerable time elapses between authorization and land acquirement, during which land values may vary impredictably.1952, Annual report of the Chief of Engineers U.S. Army. From the entry acquirement
  • Twelve years have now elapsed since the first assassinations which proved the existence of a criminal organization in our midst.1914 September – 1915 May, Arthur Conan Doyle, “Lodge 341, Vermissa”, in The Valley of Fear: A Sherlock Holmes Novel, New York, N.Y.…. From the entry opprobrium
  • Since one calendar day must elapse before a floor vote, the votes will take place after midnight Thursday unless Republicans agree to suspend the rule.2004 June 24, Laura Mansnerus, “Trenton Approves $28 Billion Budget Plan”, in New York Times, retrieved 26 May 2014. From the entry calendar day
  • He returned to Lancashire; took possession of the property at Manchester; and many years elapsed before he received the mysterious intimation of his father's real death.2020, Elizabeth Gaskell, The Grey Woman. From the entry take possession
  • They sat among the choiring clepsydras of the evening garden, time elapsing in a dozen ways, allowing their cigars to go out, keeping a companionable silence.2006, Thomas Pynchon, Against the Day, Vintage, published 2007, page 856. From the entry clepsydra
  • In recent years a consensus has been reached among many scientists in the field that the most relevant measure of run time is actual wall-clock elapsed time.1996, Roger W. Hockney, The Science of Computer Benchmarking, SIAM, →ISBN, pages 19–20. From the entry wall clock
  • The average elapsed time for those races at the Florida tracks was 46.3 minutes after offtime, with the maximum being 54 minutes and the miniumum being 42 minutes.1965, United States Federal Communications Commission, Federal Communications Commission Reports. From the entry offtime
  • In the nonmutual associations it is possible to determine precisely how long a time will elapse before the entire debt is discharged, and exactly the cost to the borrower.1926, Elwood Lloyd, Successful Financing of the Home, Evening Herald, page 30. From the entry nonmutual
  • Only a few years elapsed when the Legislature, encouraged by this malign ruling, passed a law creating cities of the fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh class each.1901 January 17, “Norristown Letter”, in The Bucks County Gazette, volume 28, number 24, Bristol, Pa., page 3. From the entry dysnomy

Meaning of elapse

  1. verb To pass or move by.

Full definition of elapse

Questions about elapse in a sentence

How do you use elapse in a sentence?
Elapse is used as a verb. For example: “He allowed a month to elapse before beginning the work.”
What is a short sentence with elapse?
“Several days elapsed before they met again.”
What does elapse mean?
Elapse means to pass or move by.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: elapse (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use elapse in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/elapse. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.