A funhouse is a walk-through attraction at carnivals, amusement parks, and fairs designed to surprise, confuse, and amuse visitors with optical illusions, unexpected obstacles, and playful tricks. When you enter a funhouse, you might encounter tilted rooms that make it hard to walk straight, floors that shake or spin beneath your feet, mirrors that stretch you tall or squash you wide, and sudden blasts of air that startle you.

The original funhouses became popular in the early 1900s and featured mechanical surprises: floors that dropped slightly, walls that pressed inward, and rotating barrels you had to walk through without falling. Modern funhouses often include mazes of mirrors where every direction looks like a path forward, making it genuinely challenging to find your way out.

The term also appears in the phrase funhouse mirror, which refers to the distorted mirrors that make your reflection look impossibly stretched, compressed, or wavy. People use this phrase metaphorically when something gives a warped or exaggerated version of reality, like saying a biased news story presents a funhouse mirror version of what actually happened.

Despite the name, funhouses aren't meant to be scary (though some people find the disorientation unpleasant). They're designed to be silly and entertaining, making you laugh at yourself as you stumble through a spinning tunnel or try to navigate a maze where every turn looks identical.