mid-15c., "elapsing of time, expiration;" also "temporary forfeiture of a legal right" due to some failure or non-action by the holder, from Old French laps "lapse," from Latin lapsus "a slipping and falling, a landslide; flight (of time); falling into error," from labi "to glide, slip, slide, sink, fall; decline, go to ruin," which is of unknown etymology.
Meaning "moral transgression, sin" is from c. 1500; that of "slip of the memory" is 1520s; that of "a falling away from one's faith" is from 1650s.
"pile of debris at the base of a cliff or steep mountainside," 1781, a back-formation from screes (plural) "pebbles, small stones," from Old Norse skriða "landslide." This is from the verb skriða "to creep, crawl;" of a ship, "to sail, glide," also "to slide" (on snow-shoes), from Proto-Germanic *skreithanan (source also of Old English scriþan "to go, glide," Old Saxon skridan, Dutch schrijden, Old High German scritan, German schreiten "to stride").