Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
Usage examples of "rat-hole".
Old Giles Habibula is too old, Jay, too ill and lame, to be running through black and filthy rat-holes on his knees, and dancing up and down flimsy little ladders in the dark.
Two other divisions and the cavalry stood round, alert and eager, like terriers round a rat-hole, while all day the pitiless guns crashed their common shell, their shrapnel, and their lyddite into the river-bed.
So, maybe, we can turn this into something other than a flying rat-hole sardine-can.
Besides, for all I know, you've already got a career in politics and my mama didn't raise any kids who like to pound sand down rat-holes.
And you can't be in any more of a hurry to get back to whatever rat-hole you sleep in, than I am to see the back of you.
From other high rat-holes actual fire was tossed down in the forms of white phosphorus and flaming, oil-soaked, resin-hearted bundles of rags, while from various low golden rat-holes, noxious vapors brewed in the sewers were bellows-driven.