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Yomi
くろれきし
Rōmaji
kuro rekishi
Type
slang
Literal Meaning
black history
Meaning
one’s embarrassing secret/past (that one wants to forget and hide from others); skeleton in the closet
Synonym
過去の汚点
Additional Info
It is said to originate from the Japanese popular anime “Turn A Gundam”. In this anime, there is an era called “Universal Century” aka 黒歴史 (“black history”), which witnessed a great number of space wars.
It’s relatively a new slang word and is mainly used on the internet.
Example
昔、彼と付き合っていたのは私の黒歴史だ
The skeleton in my closet is that I used to be dating him.
中学生の時、自分のクソみたいなラップ動画をYouTubeにアップしていたのは完全なる黒歴史だ
It is absolutely my embarrassing secret that I used to upload my sh*tty rap videos on YouTube when I was a junior-high-school student.
A: お前、高校生のとき、１日で同じクラスの女子１０人デートに誘って全員に断られたらしいな（笑）
A: Hey dude, back in high school you asked out ten girl classmates in one day and got rejected by all of them, right? lol
B: やめろ、黒歴史を思いださせるな
B: Hey stop it, don’t remind me of my embarrassing memory