rabbit hole

[rab-it hohl]

Phonetic (Standard)IPA

noun

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

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Word History and Origins

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

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Example Sentences

Examples have not been reviewed.

Down the rabbit hole they went, scouring message boards and subreddits, where they found lots of bad advice — some of it dangerous even.

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Like a lot of teens, Ethan seeks guidance in the online manosphere, going down a rabbit hole of misogynistic comments about his stepmother.

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A feast for the curiosity-starved brain, “Invention” is the kind of revelatory work that inspires and unnerves in equal measure, a distinctly modern masterpiece that maps the rabbit hole in a way only cinema can.

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But Musk began to drift right as he became more and more red-pilled on Twitter, where he quickly went down the rabbit hole of conspiracy theories like "The Great Replacement."

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“Our job is just getting people to go down the rabbit hole,” he said.

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rabbit-foot clover rabbiting

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