interregnum

1. (politics) A period of time during which normal executive leadership is suspended or interrupted.

2. (by extension) An intermission in any order of succession; any breach of continuity in action or influence.Examples: "Is it not Pelham who wonders what becomes of servants when they are not wanted;—whether, like the tones of an instrument, they exist but when called for? About servants we will not decide; but that some such interregnum certainly occurs in female existence on rising from table, no one can doubt who ever noted the sound of the dining and the silence of the drawing-room."; "This was in that strange pause of the storm which is its most remarkable feature in the South—that singular interregnum of the winds, when, after giving repeated notice of their most terrific action, they seem almost to forget their purpose, and for a few moments appear to slumber in their inactivity."; "Between the end of the Fowler régime in 1931 and the advent of Stanier in 1932, there was a short interregnum during which Ernest Lemon was in charge, with Ernest Beames as his principal aide-de-camp."Synonyms: hiatusbroadly

3. (Christianity) the period of time between when a minister or pastor leaves a church and when a new one is installed