bad history
3
4.4
- noun
:
mala historia
- We just have a bad history with freaks dressed like clowns.
So, you know, just expect to fail a high failure rate if you have a bad history.
- So, you know, just expect to fail a high failure rate if you have a bad history.
Examples
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With his bad history of cheating, few trust him in business deals.
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Yeah, we have a bad history.
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We have fifty years of bad history to make up for.
Fiction book (1992) -
Overall, doesn't seem like a bad history to me.
Blog text (12) -
The anti-smokers have a bad history of distorting science.
Blog text (8) -
The company has a bad history of failing to meet safety standards.
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Her bad history of theft made it difficult for her to find a job.
Synonyms
34
6.8
A mark on someone's reputation that makes others respect them less
7
5.8
A thing that makes people think less of someone
3
6.3
A mark that damages a person's reputation or record
1
6.9
Past events many people find wrong or hurtful
How Damaging
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'a record of negative behavior or reputation' is directly and transparently derived from combining 'bad' (negative) with 'history' (past record), yielding a straightforward adjective+noun composition. This is a common, cross-linguistic compositional pattern, so a B1 learner who knows both constituents should be able to infer the MWE's meaning.
Etymology
The phrase bad history uses the image of a written history filled with bad actions, like a file or story that shows someone's past problems. So it is used to mean 'a record of negative behavior'.