Word.ws English Dictionary

after you, Alphonse

after you, Alphonse phrase: an exchange indicating excessive formality or effort at politeness, particularly where two people each refuse to go forward because each insists on allowing the other to go forward first.

Phrase

after you, Alphonse

  1. An exchange indicating excessive formality or effort at politeness, particularly where two people each refuse to go forward because each insists on allowing the other to go forward first.
    • And two French sisters performed a delightful after-you-Alphonse routine when they came in first and second in the women's slalom, then took the same top places, in reversed order, in the giant slalom.1964 February 14, “Snow show goes off in big style”, in LIFE, volume 56, number 7, page 30
    • As this tortuous wording suggests, models and their reflections keep reversing in the mirror, in a sort of “after you, Alphonse—no, after you” exchange.2010, Wendy Steiner, The Real Real Thing: The Model in the Mirror of Art, page 109

Origin of after you, Alphonse

Paraphrase of a line in Alphonse and Gaston, an American comic strip by Frederick Burr Opper.

Questions about after you, Alphonse

What does after you, Alphonse mean?
After you, Alphonse means an exchange indicating excessive formality or effort at politeness, particularly where two people each refuse to go forward because each insists on allowing the other to go forward first.
What part of speech is after you, Alphonse?
After you, Alphonse is a phrase.

Words near after you, Alphonse in the dictionary

  1. after the fact
  2. after the jump
  3. after the Lord Mayor's show
  4. after us the deluge
  5. after you
  6. after you, Alphonse
  7. after't
  8. after-
  9. after-acquired
  10. after-acquired title
  11. after-acquired titles

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: after you, Alphonse (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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