Meanings
- An exchange indicating excessive formality or effort at politeness, particularly where two people each refuse to go forward because each insists on allowing the other to go forward first.
As this tortuous wording suggests, models and their reflections keep reversing in the mirror, in a sort of “after you, Alphonse—no, after you” exchange.
2010, Wendy Steiner, The Real Real Thing: The Model in the Mirror of Art, page 1091 more example
And two French sisters performed a delightful after-you-Alphonse routine when they came in first and second in the women's slalom, then took the same top places, in reversed order, in the giant slalom.
1964 February 14, “Snow show goes off in big style”, in LIFE, volume 56, number 7, page 30
Origin
Paraphrase of a line in Alphonse and Gaston, an American comic strip by Frederick Burr Opper.
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
after you, Alphonse. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/after%20you%2C%20Alphonse
“after you, Alphonse.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/after%20you%2C%20Alphonse. Accessed November 5, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “after you, Alphonse,” accessed November 5, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/after%20you%2C%20Alphonse.
Source: after you, Alphonse on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.