And Once Again Down the Rabbit Hole

• Examples
• Origin
• Usage

Slang dictionary

rabbit hole

What does rabbit pigsty mean?

Used peculiarly in the phrase going downward the rabbit pigsty or falling downwards the rabbit hole, a rabbit hole is a metaphor for something that transports someone into a wonderfully (or troublingly) surreal state or state of affairs. On the internet, a rabbit hole frequently refers to an extremely engrossing and time-consuming topic.

Where does rabbit hole come from?

Literally, a rabbit hole is what the brute digs for its dwelling house. The earliest written record of the phrase dates back to the 17th century. But the figurative rabbit hole begins with Lewis Carroll'south 1865 classic, Alice'southward Adventures in Wonderland. In its opening chapter, "Down the Rabbit-Pigsty," Alice follows the White Rabbit into his couch, which transports her to the foreign, surreal, and nonsensical world of Wonderland.

Since and so, Carroll's rabbit hole has proved a pop and useful reference. The Oxford English language Dictionary finds the first allusive rabbit hole in a 1938 edition of The Yale Law Journal: "Information technology is the Rabbit-Hole down which we roughshod into the Constabulary, and to him who has gone downwardly information technology, no queer performance is foreign." Over much of the 20th century, rabbit hole has been used to narrate bizarre and irrational experiences. It'south specially used to reference magical, challenging, and even unsafe places or positions, similar to Carroll's topsy-turvy Wonderland.

Rabbit pigsty has many metaphorical applications—from frustrating red tape to the mind-bending complexity of scientific discipline to hallucinations during altered states—all united by a mutual sense of passing into some labyrinthine, logic-defying realm that, once entered, is hard to become out of. One can fall down the rabbit hole of authorities bureaucracy, healthcare, obtaining a dark-green card, tax law, the political economy of mod Japan, puberty, college admissions, or breakthrough mechanics.

If you're Neo in the hit motion-picture show The Matrix, y'all can take the ruby pill—a pill that shows you the truth, every bit opposed to the blue pill, which keeps you in ignorance—and "see how deep the rabbit hole goes." In a related note, some people literally have pills and get down the rabbit hole of a psychedelic drug trip.

But as Kathryn Schulz observed for The New Yorker in 2015, rabbit hole has farther evolved in the information age: "These days…when we say that we fell downwardly the rabbit hole, we seldom mean that nosotros wound up somewhere psychedelically strange. We mean that nosotros got interested in something to the point of distraction—usually past blow, and usually to a degree that the subject in question might not seem to merit."

Cheers to the affluence, multifariousness, and instant access of content online, many fall down internet rabbit holes which are often spectacularly, and addictively, niche: scary stories, obscure conspiracy theories, or famous terminal meals, for example.

Other rabbit holes tend to be opened upwards by specific services or social media, which serve users item after item, link later on link: Wikipedia, Netflix, Amazon, Facebook, YouTube, and so forth. These rabbit holes have go so common that people sometimes swap out rabbit for the name of the particular site, due east.chiliad. "I've fallen down an Instragram hole" or "I'chiliad falling down a wikihole."

Examples of rabbit hole

"Then how far down the rabbit hole do we have to get earlier Comey enlightens America? We already have Putins hand maidens in the WH. HOW FAR?"

Chris #TheResistance @Portland_Chris Twitter (March 21, 2017)

"Read about Julia, the new muppet on Sesame Street and so barbarous down a rabbit pigsty of videos virtually her. Absolutely warms my heart ❤️"

jorja @jorjamcdonnell Twitter (March 21, 2017)

"Tell us almost a subject that you lot couldn't terminate exploring, a volume yous couldn't put down, or a Wikipedia rabbit hole you dove into. Why did it fascinate you?"

"Mutual Application," Pomona College (2017)

Who uses rabbit pigsty?

From formal documents to cyberspace status updates, rabbit hole is a very popular and widespread expression. Unlike earlier iterations of the metaphor, net rabbit holes convey less a sense of weirdness, disorientation, or difficulty than they exercise of an intensely captivating diversion. Rabbit hole is also showing increasing use as a modifier, eastward.g. a rabbit-hole question or phenomenon.

Note

This is not meant to exist a formal definition of rabbit hole similar virtually terms nosotros define on Dictionary.com, but is rather an informal word summary that hopefully touches upon the key aspects of the pregnant and usage of rabbit hole that volition help our users expand their word mastery.

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Source: https://www.dictionary.com/e/slang/rabbit-hole/

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