bottleneck

American  

[bot-l-nek] / ˈbɒt lˌnɛk /

noun

• bottlenecks
  plural

1. a narrow entrance or passageway.

2. a place or stage in a process at which progress is impeded.

3. Also called slide guitar.  a method of guitar playing that produces a gliding sound by pressing a metal bar or glass tube against the strings.

---

verb (used with object)

1. to hamper or confine by or as if by a bottleneck.

verb (used without object)

1. to become hindered by or as if by a bottleneck.

bottleneck British  

/ ˈbɒtəlˌnɛk /

noun

1. 1. a narrow stretch of road or a junction at which traffic is or may be held up

   2. the hold up

2. something that holds up progress, esp of a manufacturing process

3. music

   1. the broken-off neck of a bottle placed over a finger and used to produce a buzzing effect in a style of guitar-playing originally part of the American blues tradition

   2. the style of guitar playing using a bottleneck

---

verb

1. (tr) to be or cause an obstruction in

bottleneck Scientific  

/ bŏt′l-nĕk′ /

1. An abrupt and severe reduction in the number of individuals during the history of a species, resulting in the loss of diversity from the gene pool. The generations following the bottleneck are more genetically homogenous than would otherwise be expected. Bottlenecks often occur in consequence of a catastrophic event.

---

bottleneck Cultural  

1. The point at which an industry or economic system has to slow its growth because one or more of its components cannot keep up with demand.

---

Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• bottlenecks
  plural

Etymology

Origin of bottleneck

First recorded in 1895–1900; bottle ¹ + neck

Explanation

A bottleneck is a type of traffic jam, when cars get stuck or slowed down in a narrow part of the roadway. You might leave work two hours later than usual to avoid a bottleneck. Anything that gets stalled in a narrow area, whether it's auto traffic or pedestrians, can be called a bottleneck. Information can also get stuck in a kind of bottleneck, if the system itself creates a delay. The term comes from the shape of an actual bottleneck, or the narrow neck or mouth of a bottle.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

bottleneck bottlenecks

But the transition is exposing a new bottleneck: demand for indium phosphide, a material used in laser components, is expected to outstrip supply from 2026, potentially slowing shipments of next-generation products.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 10, 2026

Radiotherapy is another bottleneck crying out for staff and kit.

From BBC ● Sep. 10, 2026

Further refinery constraints in Russia and in China have added to the bottleneck of refined products.

From MarketWatch ● Sep. 8, 2026

She said the bottleneck in recovery is not the city’s permitting process but instead insurance companies unwilling to pay survivors and banks that are reluctant to finance rebuilding.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 4, 2026

The entryway of Mitch’s house is a bottleneck.

From "Dumplin'" by Julie Murphy

It did, however, note the inventory shortfalls and reveal "industrial base bottlenecks" for munitions resupply.

From BBC ● Sep. 15, 2026

Researchers at the University of Montpellier's Laboratory of Geography and Land Planning have developed evacuation routes that account for slopes, obstacles, walking speeds, and potential bottlenecks.

From Science Daily ● Sep. 10, 2026

Buying a car has become historically expensive, with pandemic-era supply-chain bottlenecks and tariffs driving up prices, while car maintenance and insurance costs have outpaced overall inflation.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 2, 2026

Serious bottlenecks have shifted to the refining stages, with the margins that oil refiners demand for producing fuels like gasoline, heating oil and diesel climbing to records in recent weeks.

From MarketWatch ● Aug. 31, 2026

Unfortunately, the nanoseconds used up in a simple computer operation do add up to lengthy bottlenecks on intractable problems, many of which would require millennia to solve in general.

From "Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and Its Consequences" by John Allen Paulos

Related Words

• barrier
• blockage
• congestion
• hindrance
• impediment
• snag
• traffic jam