Blue million

Posted by James Briggs March 06, 2011 at 10:27In reply to Blue million posted by Donna Viar on March 06, 2011 at 09:58:

Where did the term blue million come from? It was used as: Once in a blue million years...

The origin of this one is said to be a play on the French morbleu, where ‘bleu’ was a euphemism for ‘dieu’ - this occurs also in ‘sacré bleu’. The related saying 'to get away with blue murder' probably has this origin. Blue is occasionally added to words to strengthen them, eg blue blazes, blue funk, and, as you quote, blue million.