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

• bind
• box
• catch-22
• corner
• dilemma
• fix
• hole
• impasse
• jackpot [chiefly West]
• jam
• mire
• pickle
• predicament
• quagmire
• rattrap
• spot
• sticky wicket
• swamp

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

In ordinary times, the likes of Dawn would be dismissed as crackpots, but in pandemic limbo, with everyone bored and at a loose end, her weird suppositions start to get traction, sending everyone down internet rabbit holes. —Damon Wise, Deadline, 16 May 2025

Sourcing + Trends Calendar The Archive Apply Now >> Need to Know From cabinetry to millwork to flooring, the comfort of richer wood hues resonates again in uncertain times Of the seemingly infinite home design and improvement topic rabbit holes to fall into, handling millwork is a profound one. —Jessica Ritz, Architectural Digest, 14 May 2025

Sometimes there’s light at the end of the rabbit hole. —Richard Brody, New Yorker, 7 May 2025

Photo: Dimension Films/Everett Collection The Matrix had been out for less than a month when along came a much gooier plunge down the virtual rabbit hole. —A.a. Dowd, Vulture, 28 Apr. 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