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  1. l'esprit de l'escalier love

Definitions

Wiktionary

  1. n. idiomatic The feeling one gets after leaving a conversation, when one thinks of the things one should have said; afterwit.

Etymologies

  1. Loan phrase from French. (Wiktionary)

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  1. french

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  • rolig "Writers, by nature, tend to be people in whom l'esprit de l'escalier is a recurrent experience: they are always thinking of the perfect riposte after the moment for saying it has passed. So they take a few years longer and put it in print."
    – Louis Menand, "Bad Comma" (a review of Lynne Truss, Eats, Shoots & Leaves, The New Yorker, June 28, 2004.
    Nov 6, 2011

  • reesetee Just so. :-) Mar 1, 2009

  • pterodactyl Oh yeah? Oh yeah?? Well, remember what you said, because in a day or two, I'll have a witty and blistering retort. You'll be devastated then, I promise!

    -- Calvin & Hobbes, Feb 8, 1994 Mar 1, 2009

  • reesetee I do too, rolig. Only in my vision, I turn slightly, look over my shoulder, and utter the perfect comeback: "Oh, yeah?"

    ;-> Mar 1, 2009

  • rolig I love the image of this: As you're leaving some scintillating Parisian salon, descending the grand staircase to your waiting coach outside, it hits you: you know just how you should have responded, the perfect, most brilliant retort, to the Chevalier de la Foue's insinuations about your last play (or was he perhaps referring to your relations with that promising young actor at La Comédie française?). But it is too late… Feb 28, 2009

  • sionnach Also known as Treppenwitz. Jul 20, 2008

  • johnmperry Yesterday upon the stair
    I met a man who was not there.
    He was not there again today.
    Oh how I wish he'd go away.

    William Hughes Mearns, better known as Hughes Mearns (1875-1965) Jul 19, 2008

  • qroqqa Usually de l'escalier in French, more commonly d'escalier in English.

    This shows up the incompleteness of the OED (2nd ed.): the first attested use is in Zuleika Dobson in 1911, but already in 1906 the Fowlers mentioned it in The King's English and discussed the perceived fault of anglicizing it as 'spirit of the staircase'. So it must have been in use long enough to have been noticeable before that. They said 'spirit of the staircase' makes no sense unless you already know what esprit d'escalier means; if you don't, it suggests a goblin lurking in the hall clock.

    No doubt the Third Edition will find antedates once they get up to E. Jul 14, 2008

  • reesetee See also esprit d'escalier. Feb 25, 2008

  • languageandhumor (French) A perfect comeback that comes too late, after you've left and are on the stairs. Feb 25, 2008

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‘l'esprit de l'escalier’ has been looked up 1934 times, loved by 8 people, added to 34 lists, commented on 10 times, and is not a valid Scrabble word.