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Sacrebleu or sacre bleu is a French expression used as a cry of surprise, irritation or displeasure. It is a minced oath form of the profane sacré Dieu (holy God), which, by some religions, is considered profane, due to one of the Ten Commandments in the Bible, which reads "Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain."

Usage

The expression today is not used in France. In the English-speaking world, it is well known, perhaps from Agatha Christie's books about the fictional Belgian detective Hercule Poirot, and the Disney movies The Aristocats, The Rescuers, The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast which feature French characters that use the expression. The expression is used in the 1993 song "Black No. 1 (Little Miss Scare-All)" by the gothic metal band Type O Negative.

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 (blue) which rhymes with Dieu.

Other sources propose it coming from old blasphemous curses relating to God, used from the late Middle-Age (some are attested as early as the 11th century) to the 14th (at the latest), with many variants: morbleu or mordieu, corbleu, palsambleu, jarnidieu, tudieu, respectively standing for mort Dieu (God's death), corps Dieu (God's body), par le sang Dieu (by God's blood, the two latter possibly referring to the Eucharistic bread and wine), je renie Dieu (I deny God), tue Dieu (kill God) ... Those curses may be compared to the archaic English sdeath, sblood, struth or zounds (God's wounds). 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 common I swear to God.

References

1. Surugue, Lea (2 September 2014). "'Sacre bleu!' Do the French really say that?". TheLocal.fr. Retrieved 1 August 2019.
2. Étymol. et Hist. 1. 1552 Sacre Dieu (Rabelais, Quart Livre, chap. 47, éd. R. Marichal, p. 268), attest. isolée; à nouv. au xixes. 1828–29 sacredieu (Vidocq, Mém., t. 3, p. 160); 2. 1642 par la sacre-bleu! (G. Brunet, Le Nouv. siècle de Louis XIV, 8 ds Quem. DDL t. 19); 1745 sacrebleu (Godard d'Aucour, L'Académie militaire, I, 49, ibid.). I comp. de sacre3* et Dieu; 2 altér. p. euphém. de sacredieu; cf. 1757 par la sacredié! (J.-J. Vadé, Œuvres posth., p. 254) et 1750 sacrelote! (Id., Le Paquet de mouchoirs, p. 44).
3. Tassie, J. S (1961). ”The Use of Sacrilege in the Speech of French Canada”, American Speech, 36.1

• Euphemisms
• French words and phrases
• Religion in France