rabbit hole

English

Alternative forms

• rabbit-hole, rabbithole

Etymology

rabbit +‎ hole. Extended senses reference Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, where Alice travels down a rabbit hole into a bizarre world.

Noun

rabbit hole (plural rabbit holes)

1. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see rabbit,‎ hole. The entrance to a rabbit warren or burrow; the whole warren or burrow.

   Hypernyms: latibulum (obsolete), cuniculus

   • 1866, Lewis Carroll, chapter 1, in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland:

     The rabbit-hole went straight on like a tunnel for some way, and then dipped suddenly down, so suddenly that Alice had not a moment to think about stopping herself before she found herself falling down what seemed to be a very deep well.

   • 1898, H.G. Wells, The War of the Worlds, London: William Heinemann, page 83:

     As the limber gunners went to the rear, his horse trod in a rabbit-hole and came down, throwing him into a depression of the ground.

   • 1953 June, B. D. J. Walsh, “Branch Lines to Thetford”, in Railway Magazine, page 378:

     There are two platforms (that on the down side is a island) but they are weed-grown, with many rabbit-holes, and there is no cover of any kind.

2. (usually with article) A bizarre world, where everyday rules do not apply.
3. (usually with article) A way into such a world.

   Synonym: looking-glass

   These mushrooms will take you down the rabbit hole, man.

   • 1999, The Wachowskis, 0:29:05 from the start, in The Matrix, spoken by Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne):

     You take the blue pill, the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill, you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.

   • 2012, Linda Hoy, The Effect, John Hunt Publishing, →ISBN, page vii:

     Tumbling down the rabbit hole, she encountered a whole new level of existence where the laws of physics were turned upside down, shaken inside out and taken to the cleaners.

4. (by extension) A time-consuming tangent or detour, often one from which it is difficult to extricate oneself.

   Synonym: wild-goose chase

   Near-synonym: rabbit trail (regiolectic)

   I'm also a fan of a really obscure book series, but that's a rabbit hole that we won't get into.

   While writing my paper, my research went down several rabbit holes that were only marginally related and wasted a lot of my time.

   • 2017, Judith Aston, Sandra Gaudenzi, Mandy Rose, I-Docs: The Evolving Practices of Interactive Documentary, →ISBN:

     My point is not to go down the rabbit hole of deconstructing the term documentary, […]

   • 2018, GAPS Stories, Chelsea Green Publishing, →ISBN:

     I felt pretty strongly that non-food supplements would be a complicated, expensive rabbit hole that rarely cure children fully of anxiety / autism / etc. (especially in the absence of enough nourishing food).

5. (gaming) The initial clue that leads to an alternate reality game.

   Synonym: trailhead

Related terms

• wormhole

 

Translations

(entrance to) a rabbit warren or burrow

• Danish: kaninhul n
• Dutch: konijnenhol (nl) n
• Finnish: kaninkolo
• French: terrier (fr) m (de lapin (fr))
• German: Kaninchenloch n, Kaninchenhöhle f, Kaninchenbau (de) m
• Greek: κουνελότρυπα (el) f (kounelótrypa)
• Hungarian: nyúlüreg, nyúlodú, nyúl ürege/odúja/odva/vacka
• Icelandic: kanínuhola f
• Irish: poll coinicéir m, súil choinicéir f, rapach f, poll coinín m
• Spanish: madriguera (es) f
• Swedish: kaninhål n, kaninhåla c, kaningryt n
• Volapük: kroligahog

bizarre world

• German: Trip (de) m, Wunderland n, Nonsenswelt f

way into a bizarre world — see looking-glass

time-consuming tangent or detour

• Chinese:

  Mandarin: please add this translation if you can

• Dutch: please add this translation if you can
• Esperanto: please add this translation if you can
• French: méandre (fr) m, dédale (fr) m, écheveau (fr) m
• German: Abschweifung (de) f, Abstecher (de) m (coll.), Nebengleis (de) n (fig.), zeitaufwendiges Unterfangen n
• Hungarian: bonyodalom (hu), rejtelmek (hu), szövevény (hu), útvesztő (hu), (detour) kitérő (hu), kacskaringó (hu), mellékvágány (hu), vargabetű (hu)
• Italian: please add this translation if you can
• Japanese: please add this translation if you can
• Spanish: jardín (es) m, madriguera de conejo f
• Swedish: tidsdödare c, utsvävning (sv) c, distraktion (sv) c

gaming: clue that leads to an alternate reality game

References

• “rabbit hole”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.