Sacrebleu


Sacrebleu or sacre bleu is a French profanity meant as a cry of surprise or happiness. It is a minced oath form of the profane sacré dieu translating to "holy God". The holy God exclamation being profane is related to the third commandment: "Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain."

Usage

The expression today is not used in France, but in the English-speaking world it is well known, perhaps from Agatha Christie's books about the fictional Belgian detective Hercule Poirot.
Most French dictionaries state "sacrebleu" to be equivalent to "sacredieu".

Origin

The phrase originated from the words "sacré dieu". At varying points in history this was considered to be taking God's name in vain which is forbidden in the Ten Commandments. It was then changed to 'bleu' which rhymes with Dieu.
Other sources propose it coming from old blasphemous curses relating to God, used from the late Middle-Age to the 14th, with many variants: morbleu or mordieu, corbleu, palsambleu, jarnidieu, tudieu, respectively standing for mort Dieu, corps Dieu, par le sang Dieu, je renie Dieu, tue Dieu... Those curses may be compared to the archaic English sdeath, sblood, struth or zounds. They were considered so offensive that Dieu was sublimated into the similar-sounding neutral syllable bleu. The verb sacrer has several meanings, including to crown, to anoint, to name someone , and in the past, rarely in France but more common in French Canada, of swear, curse. Therefore, sacrebleu could be in modern French Je jure par Dieu and in English I curse by God, or the more used I swear to God.