How do you pronounce l'esprit de l'escalier?

The recorded pronunciation is /lɛˌspɹi də ˌlɛs.kəlˈjeɪ/.

l'esprit de l'escalier

/lɛˌspɹi də ˌlɛs.kəlˈjeɪ/

Word Rarity Very rare

Frequency: Zipf frequency 1.61 in modern English

Scrabble Score

Letters

Syllables

Unique Chars

noun

Uncountable

"Some last thoughts in l'esprit de l'escalier—afterthoughts descending the stairwell as one remembers things unsaid."
"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: […]"
"'That's understandable,' said May, 'we get it all the time. L'esprit d'escalier—remembering what you should have said too late.'"
"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."

Borrowed from French esprit de l’escalier (literally “mind of the staircase”), with the definite article le (“the”) at the beginning of the term. It refers to a description of the phenomenon in the essay Paradoxe sur le comédien (Paradox of the Actor, completed 1778 and published 1830) by the French encyclopedist and philosopher Denis Diderot (1713–1784). During a dinner at the home of the statesman Jacques Necker (1732–1804), Diderot was left speechless by a remark made to him. He wrote: « 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, such as myself, overwhelmed by the argument levelled against him, becomes confused and can only think clearly again at the bottom of the stairs”), that is, when one is already on the way out of the house.

esprit de l'escalier (alternative) esprit d'escalier (alternative) l'esprit d'escalier (alternative)

fridge logic shower thought

fridge logic retrotort shower thought