bad old days
The grim past
The bad old days are a past era remembered negatively—a time of hardship, injustice, or inferior conditions now thankfully behind us.
The phrase often appears when contrasting present improvements with former troubles: Back in the bad old days, workers had no protections.
It inverts the nostalgic "good old days" to emphasize that not all of the past deserves fondness.
- vicissitudesSuccessive changes in circumstances
- difficultRequiring much effort
- yesteryearTime not long past
- dark agesEra of decline or stagnation
- hard timesPeriod of difficulty
tough times · hardship · child labor · unemployment · Great Depression · industrial revolution · hunger · inequality · forced migration · famine · oppression · dust bowl · wartime rationing · poverty · slavery · Jim Crow · serfdom · poor
bad old daysgood old days
Idealized past era
golden age · halcyon days · glory days · golden years · golden era
bad old daysbright future
Anticipated success and happiness
better days ahead · new era · modern times · new age · future
bad, old, days, badly, badness, older, oldest, oldness, olden