黒歴史

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.

中学生ちゅうがくせいの時とき、自分じぶんのクソみたいなラップ動画どうがをYouTubeにアップしていたのは完全かんぜんなる黒歴史だ
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: お前まえ、高校生こうこうせいのとき、１日にちで同おなじクラスの女子じょし１０人にんデートに誘さそって全員ぜんいんに断ことわられたらしいな（笑わら）
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、黒歴史を思おもいださせるな
B: Hey stop it, don’t remind me of my embarrassing memory