rabbit hole

plural rabbit holes · alternative rabbit-hole · alternative rabbithole

1. figurativelyusuallyA bizarre world, where everyday rules do not apply.
2. figurativelyusuallyA way into such a world.

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

   2 more examples

   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.

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

   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.

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

   Synonyms: looking-glass

3. broadlyfigurativelyA time-consuming tangent or detour, often one from which it is difficult to extricate oneself.

   Near-synonym: rabbit trail (regiolectic)

   4 more examples

   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.

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

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

   2018, GAPS Stories, Chelsea Green Publishing, →ISBN

   Synonyms: wild-goose chase, rabbit trail[regiolect]]ic>

4. figurativelygamesThe initial clue that leads to an alternate reality game.

   Synonyms: trailhead

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

   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.

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

   2 more examples

   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.

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

   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.

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