Meaning Of French Expression Avoir LEsprit DEscalier

â€Å"Avoir l’esprit d’escalier† - or sometimes â€Å"avoir l’esprit de l’escalier† is yet another weird French idiom. Literally, it means to have the wit of the staircase. So it means nothing really!   Synonyms of Avoir lEsprit dEscalier in French and English In English, you sometimes call this â€Å"escalator wit†, or afterwit. It means to make a witty comeback, to answer someone in a witty (and fast) way. Its something the French really admire and are trained to do as part of our national sport: arguing and debating. To say to make a witty comeback, we use the expression â€Å"avoir de la rà ©partie†. So here, we could say â€Å"manquer de rà ©partie†, â€Å"ne pas savoir rà ©pliquer sur le moment†, â€Å"perdre ses moyens†. Example of Escalator Wit in French and English Moi, je manque cruellement de rà ©partie. Quand je me sens attaquà ©e, je perds tous mes moyens, je bredouille... et puis quand je suis rentrà ©e chez moi, je trouve plein de rà ©pliques fantastiques. Jai vraiment lesprit descalier. I desperately lack the ability to make witty comebacks. When I feel threatened, I lose my cool, I stutter... and once Im back home, I find lots of great comebacks. I really have an escalator wit. Origin of the French Idiom â€Å"Avoir l’Esprit d’Escalier† The philosopher Diderot wrote around 1775: â€Å" « ...lhomme sensible comme moi, tout entier à   ce quon lui objecte, perd la tà ªte et ne se retrouve quau bas de lescalier  ». Which translates  to: â€Å"The sensitive man such as myself, entirely absorbed by things that are being objected to him, loses his mind and recovers it only at the bottom of the stairs†. He meant that if someone opposed him in a conversation, he was so upset by it that he couldn’t concentrate anymore, and that it’s only once he had left, and reached the bottom of the staircase (therefore too late), that he could come up with a good answer.   French stairs Speaking of lescalier, remember French people do not count their stairs the way Americans do.