esprit de l'escalier

1. 1.

   a witty remark that occurs to you too late

   Broaderwit

Questions about esprit de l'escalier

What does esprit de l'escalier mean?

esprit de l'escalier means "a witty remark that occurs to you too late".

Is esprit de l'escalier a common word?

esprit de l'escalier is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.