go down the rabbit hole

Going Down the Rabbit Hole: Meaning and Examples

We all go down rabbit holes from time to time. If you don’t know the meaning of this expression, don’t worry, it’s not something to be ashamed of and it has nothing to do with poor rabbits.

Although, literally rabbit hole is a hole that rabbits dig in the ground as their home.

The expression dates back to the 17th century, and was used as a synonym for ‘burrow’ until Lewis Caroll published Alice in Wonderland in 1865.

Going Down the Rabbit Hole: Meaning and Examples

In his book, he used ‘rabbit hole’ to transport Alice to Wonderland. She literally falls down the White Rabbit’s hole and ends up in the nonsensical and surreal world called Wonderland.

After this, people began to refer to rabbit holes as complex situations or matters that are difficult to understand but easy to get lost in.

Here are some examples:

— I’m gonna try to give you advice that is not meant to send you down a rabbit hole, and involve you in chaos and disorder.
— You can easily fall down the rabbit hole of government bureaucracy, healthcare, obtaining a green card, tax law etc.

Nowadays when we’re overwhelmed with the information people start using ‘rabbit hole‘ to describe a situation when you got so interested in something that you just can’t stop either watching or reading about this subject.

Internet rabbit holes can destroy your focus and productivity. That’s why people often say: “Don’t get sucked into various attention rabbit holes.”

You could also go down a rabbit hole of watching captivating TV shows: “I had only watched a few Friends episodes before I went down a rabbit hole of watching the whole season of the show.”

Going Down the Rabbit Hole: Meaning and Examples

How to Use ‘Rabbit Hole’ in a Sentence

There are two verbs that usually go with a ‘rabbit hole’: go down and fall down.

So you either go down a rabbit hole of something or fall down a rabbit hole of something.

✍️If you like this expression, make a sentence with it and share it in the comments.

You can find more words and vocabulary quizzes here

Additional resources for ‘rabbit hole’:

Rabbit Hole Meaning on Dictionary.com
History of the Idiom “Down the Rabbit Hole”

 

 

 

Vika
Posts created 124

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