rabbit hole

noun

: a complexly bizarre or difficult state or situation conceived of as a hole into which one falls or descends

I wanted to show this woman descending into the rabbit hole: this loss of self, becoming a servant to her job and to the work.

—Jessica Chastain

especially : one in which the pursuit of something (such as an answer or solution) leads to other questions, problems, or pursuits

While trying to find the picture again on Google, I fell down the Cosmo rabbit hole, scrolling through a gallery of swimwear, then through "How to Be Sexier-Instantly" and then through all 23 slides of "Sexy Ideas for Long Hair."

—Edith Zimmerman

Because it is so early on in this work it is easy to say that we are either at the edge of a remarkable new and useful science or that we are careering down an environmental rabbit hole.

—Jack Hitt

In the season-two premiere of HBO's Westworld, viewers were again tossed down a rabbit hole filled with theories, where one open door leads to many more closed ones.

—Josh Wigler and Zoe Haylock

Synonyms

• dilemma
• predicament
• pickle
• hole
• bind
• swamp
• corner

Examples of rabbit hole in a Sentence

shoreline residents are finding themselves helplessly falling down a rabbit hole in their Sisyphean efforts to halt beach erosion

Recent Examples on the Web

The crime comedy focuses on siblings Megan and Nathan who discover a dead body, long buried in their parents’ basement, sending them down a rabbit hole of crime and murder. —Andreas Wiseman, Deadline, 8 Sep. 2025

Those prompts might serve to reduce the AI’s default tendencies and keep the AI from going down rabbit holes with the person. —Lance Eliot, Forbes.com, 7 Sep. 2025

Based on the Pennsylvania haunting of the Smurl family, the film sent him down a research rabbit hole to find out all about the Warrens – a fascination that eventually turned into a hugely successful horror-movie universe. —Brian Truitt, USA Today, 5 Sep. 2025

Listening to documentarian Morgan Neville and actor Paul Mescal dive down the Paul McCartney rabbit hole at the Telluride brunch was one of my festival highlights. —Anne Thompson, IndieWire, 3 Sep. 2025

Word History

Etymology

from the rabbit hole that Alice enters in Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland

First Known Use

1938, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for rabbit hole

• amphibole
• asystole
• buttonhole
• casserole
• centriole
• decontrol
• glycerol
• metropole
• monopole
• multipole
• omeprazole
• oriole