esprit de l'escalier

English

Noun

esprit de l'escalier (uncountable)

Alternative form of l'esprit de l'escalier
- 1911 October 26, Max Beerbohm, chapter XVII, in Zuleika Dobson, or, An Oxford Love Story, London: W[illiam] Heinemann, OCLC 1000990841; 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: John Lane Company, 1912, OCLC 925129, page 256:
  Yet, she had outflanked him, taken him unawares, and he had fired not one shot. Esprit de l'escalier—it was as he went upstairs that he saw how he might yet have snatched from her, if not the victory, the palm.

French

Alternative forms

esprit d'escalier

Etymology

After Diderot in Paradoxe sur le Comédien (completed in 1778, published in 1830):[1][2]

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.

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.

Pronunciation

IPA^(key): /ɛs.pʁi d(ə) l‿ɛs.ka.lje/
Rhymes: -e

Noun

esprit de l'escalier m (uncountable)

l'esprit de l'escalier, staircase wit
- 1905, Maurice Souriau, Bernardin de Saint-Pierre d'après ses manuscrits, page 52:
  Est-ce de l'esprit de l'escalier, mais exaspéré par la rancune?
  (please add an English translation of this quote)

Coordinate terms

Descendants

→ English: l'esprit de l'escalier
→ English: staircase wit (calque)
→ German: Treppenwitz (calque)
→ Portuguese: espírito da escada (calque)

→ Russian: ле́стничный ум (léstničnyj um) (calque), остроу́мие на ле́стнице (ostroúmije na léstnice) (calque)
→ Spanish: espíritu del escalador (calque), ingenio de la escalera (calque)
→ Yiddish: טרעפּווערטער‎ (trepverter) (calque)

References

The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, Oxford University Press, 2004, →ISBN
Denis Diderot (1773, remanié en 1778) Paradoxe sur le Comédien, Classiques Larousse, published 1934, Diderot II, page 56

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[1] The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, Oxford University Press, 2004, →ISBN

[2] Denis Diderot (1773, remanié en 1778) Paradoxe sur le Comédien, Classiques Larousse, published 1934, Diderot II, page 56