Kilo Lingo

Line drawing of kolapso
Coloured illustration of kolapso
#2328 of 5,000 Core 5000

Translation

collapse (of a structure or a system); a sudden failure of strength

Word origin

From Latin collapsus, the participle of collabi, to fall together: com- ('together') plus labi ('to slip, to fall'). The same labi is behind lapse and relapse, which are the slower versions of the same movement.

Origin
Latin
Root
collabi
English cognates
collapse, lapse, relapse

Examples

.

The collapse of the wall happened quite suddenly.

.

After the collapse of the bank many people lost their money.

.

The doctor feared a collapse of the heart.

Nothing in this word is a suffix. Esperanto has no -aps-, so - + -aps- + -o is not an analysis, and the - at the front is not , a neck. is one root that arrived from Latin with its internal joints already welded shut, and the com- that really is a prefix inside it stopped being one long before Esperanto existed.

Register. This is a formal word - medicine, engineering, economics. For a wall that falls down in ordinary speech, or i (to fall apart) does the work, and is is what a person would actually say. Reach for when the thing collapsing is a system, a market, a lung or a patient.

The . Kolapsi is intransitive: the thing collapses by itself, and there is no object to take -n. To knock something down deliberately you want i or .

Where this fits

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Esperanto · Free printables

kolapso: worksheet, infographic and listicle

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This word is part of lesson 47.