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Definition

A rabbit hole refers to a world that is particularly bazar, troubling and wonderfully surreal. It is a world that is typically difficult to remove oneself from.
The phrase is mostly used with the verbs ‘fall’ and ‘go’.
- Fall down the rabbit hole.
- Go down the rabbit hole.

Origin

The phrase rabbit hole comes from Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865). It refers to the hole down which the heroine falls. Alice sees a rabbit in the garden and literally falls down the rabbit hole. What happens after that is that she finds herself in a place called wonderland, a place ’where logic and proportion have fallen cold and dead.’

The idiom rabbit hole is also used to describe online activities which are extremely captivating and time-consuming.

Example(s)

- School's starting up again, time to go down the rabbit hole once more.
- You have to be ready to go down the rabbit hole if you decide to start your own business.
- She doesn’t want to become addicted to drugs, so she decided to avoid going down that rabbit hole.