rabbit hole

[rab-it hohl]

noun

1. a tunnel made in the ground by a rabbit; a rabbit burrow.

2. Informal.,  a strange, disorienting, or frustrating situation or experience, typically one that is difficult to navigate: I have been down the rabbit hole of building a new home.

   I had a history of depression and occasionally fell down dark, deep rabbit holes from which only medication and therapy could pull me out.

   I have been down the rabbit hole of building a new home.

3. Informal.,  a time-consuming distraction of one's attention as happens when clicking through online links, following social media posts, or pursuing information.

   After diving down an internet rabbit hole and poring over treatments, risks, and so on, she felt even more panicked.

Word History and Origins

Origin of rabbit hole¹

First recorded in 1660–70; rabbit hole def. 2 was first recorded in 1935–40, from Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

Example Sentences

He’s essentially doing the same thing that Alice is doing, chasing the rabbit down the rabbit hole in Lewis Carroll’s novel.

From Salon

“Every day I would follow the yellow brick road and have a magic key and slide down a rabbit hole, and I would wonder why the rest of the world wasn’t like that,” Hull says.

From Los Angeles Times

Intrigued, the French writer dives into a rabbit hole and discovers the name belongs to a member of the French Resistance.

From Los Angeles Times

Kennedy is probably the world’s most famous vaccine skeptic, having spent years wallowing in the rabbit hole of dark conspiracy theories.

From Salon

I was reminded of a passage of a book I recently scored on eBay while consumed in my twice-yearly Madonna rabbit hole, “Madonna’s Drowned Worlds: New Approaches to her Cultural Transformations.”

From Salon