Help with French Word please

[AlexBell]

In After Dark by Wilkie Collins, published in the 1850s, a French gambler uses the word Credié as an exclamation. I can't find it in Larouse; can anyone translate it into English please?

[EowynCarter]

Unknown here as well.

I wonder if it's some deformation of "crédieu"

Ah ! That's right :
http://dictionnaire.reverso.net/fran...n/cr%C3%A9dieu

[Arios]

Alex,

EowynCarter is right, and you can for probably translate Crédieu! by Goddammit! (Or by a swear word expressing anger).

[Mike L]

I agree. I believe crébondieu is itself a corruption of sacré Bon Dieu.

Mike

[Arios]

Hi Mike,

Nice find. Crébondieu and sacré Bon Dieu are not in my "old" digital dictionary Le Petit Robert. So I should add (to be more precise on the global meaning): "swear word expressing the nervousness and maybe the anger".

BTW, a subtle French "érudit" based in Edinburgh, this is not trivial.

Cheers!

[AlexBell]

Thanks very much everyone for your help. It's not that I want to translate it for the ebook I'm designing; I just wanted to know for my own satisfaction. I suspected it might be a naughty word from the context.

I'll leave the accent where it is in my first post, since that's what's used in the original book.

[Doonge]

There's a bunch of similar old fashioned swearwords.

In the vein of crédié, crédieu, you have also crévindiou or crévindié, where "Dieu" is transformed into "dié" or "diou" to avoid blasphemy. You can also see "vindié" ou "vindiou". This transformation comes usually from peasanry, bottom class.

Another transformation is "bleu" (like "blue"), like "palsambleu" "parbleu", "morbleu", "sacrebleu", "tudieu", "corbleu", "ventrebleu" and that one comes more from higher ranks.

You can sometimes switch "bleu" for "diou" or "dié", just to change the information about the swearer, but it doesn't always work because "how it rings" was taken into consideration. Not to mention pronunciation might change aswell ("crédié" > "crebleu" no accent).

As Mike L pointed at, those "jurons" are corrupted contraction of longer swear formula.
Tudieu > Par la vertu de Dieu
Jarnidieu > Je renie Dieu
Corbleu > Par le corps de Dieu
Têtebleu > Tête de Dieu
Ventrebleu > Par le ventre de Dieu
Palsambleu > Par le sang de Dieu
Morbleu > Par la mort de Dieu
Parbleu > Par Dieu (and gave the more regular word "Pardi")
Sacrebleu > Sacre Dieu (Fête-Dieu)
Boudiu > Bon Dieu
Vindiou > Vingt Dieux (means more "by the innumerable gods", or would be a word play with "Vain Dieu" which means "Shallow God").

You also have some really irreverencial ones, like "Foutredieu" ("fuckgod" or "god's semen"), "Fichtredieu" or "Fouchtredieu".

I suppose the same thing could be found in english.

Also, "Crédié" (I'm suprised to see it written without accent on the first "e", but I guess the gambler has a french sub accent) is one of the less naughty. You can rank the naughty level of the swearword by how much it disrespects the notion of God, or how much you are swearing on something awful. "Crédié" is just "Holy God", meaning "I swear, by the Holy God!". Compare with "By the death of God", or "By the innumerable Gods" (in a monotheistic context) ^^

[Arios]

You're welcome Alex,

With so many informations now, it should be possible to write a complete novel pertaining to the ancient French swear words passing silently in the dark of history...

[Mike L]

That's terrific information, Doonge. I'll bookmark your post, and will no doubt re-visit it many times.

And you're right that we have similar constructions in English. A couple that come immediately to mind are:

- Strewth > God's Truth

- Bloody > By My Lady

Mike

[samhy]

Thanks Doonge and Mike L. I've learned many thinks in that topic. I had no idea where bloody was coming from. That's interesting.