l'esprit de l'escalier
Definition from Wiktionary, the free dictionary
Contents |
[edit] English
[edit] Etymology
Loan phrase from French.
[edit] Alternative forms
[edit] Noun
l'esprit de l'escalier
- (idiomatic) The feeling you get after leaving a conversation, when you think of the things you should have said.
- afterwit
[edit] Translations
to think of a retort too late
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[edit] French
[edit] Etymology
Literally staircase wit; originally a witticism of Diderot in Paradoxe sur le Comédien (completed in 1778, published in 1830).[1]: "l’homme sensible, comme moi, tout entier à ce qu’on lui objecte, perd la tête et ne se retrouve qu’au bas de l’escalier"[2] (‘a sensitive man like me, overwhelmed by the argument levelled against him, loses his head – and doesn't get it back again till he's at the bottom of the stairs’).
[edit] Noun
l'esprit de l'escalier m. (usually uncountable)
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, Oxford University Press, 2004, (ISBN 0-19-860720-2)
- ^ Paradoxe sur le comédien, 1773, remanié en 1778; Diderot II, Classiques Larousse 1934, p. 56
