bolthole
/ˈbəʊlthəʊl
/noun
1A place where a person can escape and hide: he thought of Antwerp as a possible bolthole...
- We now have more than 500 members from 35 countries worldwide and many of them see the club as a unique bolthole where they can shelter from the public eye.
- One day, I will have a flat there as a bolthole for an occasional escape from everything.
- He and his friends had been down in their strip-lit bolthole for weeks, toiling selflessly day and night.
2chiefly British A hole or burrow by which a rabbit or other wild animal can escape.Basc is openly in favour of fox-hunting, shooting hares, flushing foxes out of their boltholes, rabbiting and other animal-unfriendly activities....
- The rabbits were scattering for their boltholes, thumping the ground as they ran so as to warn those still below ground that they should remain there.
- The underground boltholes of the nocturnal creatures have been identified almost one mile away from the heart of Treacle Town.