l'esprit de l'escalier

alternative esprit de l'escalier · alternative esprit d'escalier · alternative l'esprit d'escalier

1. uncountableThe phenomenon when a conversational rejoinder or remark only occurs to someone after the opportunity to make it has passed.

   Some last thoughts in l'esprit de l'escalier—afterthoughts descending the stairwell as one remembers things unsaid.

   2011, Richard Kearney, “Epilogue”, in Anatheism: Returning to God after God (Insurrections), New York, N.Y.; Chichester, West Sussex: Columbia University Press, →ISBN, part 3 (Postlude), page 182

   4 more examples

   Imagine you're at a party and some jerk makes a clever comment at your expense. You're speechless, and only as you are leaving do you think of the world's greatest comeback. […] The French term for this little bit of torment is l'esprit de l'escalier or staircase wit, so called because that's where you tend to be when the brain finally delivers—too late to do you any good.

   2002, Roy Underhill, Khrushchev's Shoe, page 181

   I flashed on Nancy again. The French had a word for everything: even for that thing you wished you'd said. L'esprit de l'escalier. The wit of the staircase. What I wished I'd said was this: […]

   2013, Simmone Howell, Girl Defective, Sydney, N.S.W.: Pan Macmillan, →ISBN; paperback edition, New York, N.Y.: Atheneum Books for Young Readers, September 2015, →ISBN, pages 100–101

   'That's understandable,' said May, 'we get it all the time. L'esprit d'escalier—remembering what you should have said too late.'

   2014, Christopher Fowler, Bryant & May and the Bleeding Heart (A Peculiar Crimes Unit Mystery), New York, N.Y.: Bantam Books, →ISBN, page 173

   Later, l'esprit de l'escalier provided Mercia with: Glad you're in agreement/I haven't yet spoken/Is that a greeting/Yes indeed—but at the time, affronted, she grabbed at a couple of garments and announced, I'll try these.

   2014, Zoë Wicomb, October: A Novel, New York, N.Y.: The New Press, →ISBN, page 112

   Synonyms: afterwit, staircase wit