What does this mean?
I know that it’s a French “oath,” but what do the words mean.
The various English four-letter words “mean” something, and even older ones like “Gadzooks” and “Zounds” have an etymological past.
So what is a “zut” and an “alor” in French?
There are some free french translation sites on the net but mine shows that it means:
Darn then
“darn them” isn’t probably the most accurate translation you could come up with, but it’s pretty close.
The word “zut” is essentially used in the same manner as damn/darn in the english language, and “alors” just adds emphasis to it.
(similar to “merde alors!”)
Your machine has proved scientifically that there’s an ancient demon locked within her.
BTW, around here (Montreal) nobody says zut alors. We say hostie d’crisse. It’s somewhat stronger (Communion wafer of Christ!)
There’s a small but vocal religious sect in France, the Alorsians, who believe that the Messiah was a French alpine climber named Zutherie Alors, called Zut by his friends and later worshippers. He met a tragic end one winter night in 1952 on a slippery slope, but adherents of the religion are convinced that he rises from the icy crevices every spring. Thus, a French person saying “Zut Alors!” is an expression of worshipful adoration, like a Christian saying “Jesus H. Christ!” or like a Communist saying “Karl Marx!” or like a Republican saying “Dollar Bill!”
The site http://www.synec-doc.be/escrime/dico/dico_escrime-X_Y_Z.html#Heading527 (Dictionnaire des termes d’escrime = Dictionary of Fencing Terms) lists “zut!” as a euphemism for “merde,” so the best translation may be “crap.” A fencing term? For all I know, it may be the proper response to “Touche!”
Zut is a mild swear word, so you could translate it by “darn”, “shucks”, etc…, and “alors” means “then”. I don’t know the origine of the word Zut, but I’ll try to look it up at home. As far as I remember, it doesn’t sound like any other word.
The word “flûte”, meaning flute, also is sometimes used as a mild swear word, and sounds similar, so maybe there is some correlation there.
CKDextHavn, there is a special place in hell reserved for Urban Legend creators. 
Finally someone who speaks like me Tabarnac 
Hmm an adminstrator with a post count of 1984, seems suspicious to me.
CK ever the master of the tall tale. I bow to your greatness.
Jeffery
p.s. I was taught in HS French 101 that it meant “darn it”. That was as risque as our French teacher would teach us. Though I did learn a couple of words from the French Canadian in our class.
an obscure ref . . frank zappa releasd an album in 1976 . . titled “zoot allures”
My li’l pocket French Dictionary (Harrap’s Mini French) defines zut as meaning “Bother! Heck!”
Alors is translated as “so, then, whereas.”
This gets us back to handy’s translation: “darn, then” (NOT “them” but “then”.)
I concur, my French teacher also taught us that “zut alors” means, roughly, “darn it.” In fact, he forbade us to “darn it” because it was too crud and only permitted the French version. He also said that “te toi” <sp?> meant “shut up” and only permitted the former, again because the latter was too crude but somehow saying it in French made it classy.
“I hope life isn’t a big joke, because I don’t get it,” Jack Handy
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I think everybody’s wrong here…
As Dave Barry put it, Zut Alors means:
“Look! A Lors!”
Tais-toi, Gr8Kat.
All I wanna do is to thank you, even though I don’t know who you are…
Merci, Olentzero (I think…)
“I hope life isn’t a big joke, because I don’t get it,” Jack Handy
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[translating from the Larousse dictionary…]
“Zut” is an expression of contemptuous pity, sometimes of indifference. My closest translation into English would be the NY-ese “fuhgeddaboudit”.
O le mea a tamaali’i fa’asala, a o le mea a tufanua fa’alumaina.
Zut alors pretty much means “darn it” or “shoot.” Fuhgeddaboudit would be closer to “Ça n’importe pas,” “Peu importe,” or “Ça m’est egal.”
With all due respect to everyone who has offered input, I don’t think anyone has answered my question.
I know what the phrase means, and how it would typically be used.
I’m specifically looking for the etymological history of “zut,” and what the word literally translates to, not it’s English cognate meaning.
Mjollnir, I will check some French reference books I have at home and report back tomorrow.
I’m back. Couldn’t find anything. Maybe this is a question only Cecil could answer.