bottleneckn.
/ˈbɒtlnɛk/, U.S. /ˈbɑdəlˌnɛk/ 1. The neck or opening of a bottle.
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society > occupation and work > equipment > receptacle or container > vessel > flask, flagon, or bottle > [noun] > bottle > neck
necka1398
bottleneck1712
throttle1833
1712 T. Dyche tr. Fables of Phædrus xxvi. 23 The Fox stood licking at the Top of the Bottle-neck.
1782 W. Cowper Hist. John Gilpin in Public Advertiser 14 Nov. The Bottle Necks were left Both dangling at his Waist.
1817 Supporter (Chillicothe, Ohio) 26 Aug. 1/5 The cork and bottle-neck were dipped in boiling pitch.
1890 Newcastle Weekly Courant 8 Mar. 2/5 A cement particularly adapted for attaching the brasswork to bottle-necks.
1922 J. Joyce Ulysses ii. xv. [Circe] 409 A room lit by a candle stuck in a bottleneck.
1927 L. Toft & A. T. J. Kersey Theory of Machines vii. 205 We rotate a cork at the same time as we pull it in order to withdraw it from a bottle-neck.
2012 N.Y. Times Mag. 23 Dec. 16/2 Champagne stoppers are..driven into the bottle neck and held down with a wire hood called a muselet.
2.
a. A place where a road, watercourse, etc., narrows, esp. one on a road where the flow of traffic is impeded. Hence: a part of a route where congestion is caused, usually by a high volume of traffic; (also) a traffic jam.
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the world > space > [noun] > insufficiency of space > a confined or restricted space
narrowc1230
strait1352
throata1522
strait1545
straitness1625
constriction1826
bottleneck1850
fisherman's walk1867
society > travel > means of travel > route or way > way, passage, or means of access to a place > [noun] > congested or difficult part
pinch1754
bottleneck1850
pinch point1868
society > travel > means of travel > route or way > way, passage, or means of access to a place > [adjective] > congested
bottleneck1850
1850 Morning Post 4 Nov. 7/5 Widening of Chancery-Lane. We have had a view of the present state of things at this narrow bottle neck, as the Daily News has graphically described it.
1896 Chums 8 July 724/3 One of the nicely-poised boulders,..rolling down the bed of the stream, now lay wedged in the bottle-neck of the outlet.
1915 W. J. Locke Jaffery x. 123 Through the bottle-neck of Brentford,..we crawled as fast as we were able.
1928 Britain's Industr. Future (Liberal Industr. Inq.) iv. xxiii. 314 Failure to maintain dock and harbour facilities..results in delays... Ports then become the ‘bottle-necks’ of ocean traffic.
1954 J. Corbett Temple Tiger 110 The ravine narrowed down to a bottle-neck some ten feet wide.
1955 Bradford (Pa.) Era 16 Dec. 1/5 A multimillion-dollar city expressway was opened to general travel today and it led to a couple of monumental bottlenecks.
1977 Commerc. Motor 25 Feb. 31/2 All you need is one little snag, one little hold-up, and a bottleneck builds up.
2002 Evening Standard 28 May 11/3 Introducing congestion charging..specifically targeted at over-used roads and bottlenecks would ultimately benefit all motorists.
b. In extended use: a part of a process or system (esp. in business or industry), in which progress is obstructed or delayed.
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the world > action or operation > difficulty > hindrance > [noun]
lettingOE
leta1175
marring1357
impediment1398
impeachment1432
unhelpc1449
interruption1463
impeach1511
hindrance1526
prevening1557
offence1578
cross1600
impedition1623
obstructing1641
impede1659
objectiona1667
bottleneck1886
dead wood1887
log-jam1890
1886 A. Erlebach Let. to James Murray 25 June (Bodl. Libr.: J. A. H. Murray Papers, Box 7) It is of no use to work the whole alphabet further, whilst the essential present production is in peril. You have tried the larger power of supply to the bottle-neck without success.
1920 Financial Times 2 Nov. 2/3 The business of Hemmings and Co. is rolling steel, and the rolling mills are the bottle neck of our trade.
1936 Economist 14 Mar. 581/1 Frequent complaints of deliveries falling into arrears..reveal the existence of numerous ‘bottlenecks’.
1968 Brit. Med. Bull. 24 192/2 The technology, therefore, exists; the bottle-neck..is in the education and training of those whose activities can benefit from its effective use.
1990 UNIX World Oct. 8/2 (advt.) Higher processor speeds help eliminate I/O bottlenecks.
2003 Finance Week 4 Aug. 56/1 Without new investment in plant, machinery and equipment, a consumer-driven economy will run into production bottlenecks.
c. Chiefly Biology. An abrupt and severe reduction in the size of a population caused chiefly or wholly by factors other than natural selection, such as natural disasters or human activity, and resulting in a decrease in genetic variation; an episode during which such a population remains reduced.
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1951 Amer. Naturalist 85 204 It stands to reason that the ‘bottleneck’ in population size in the Eastern United States should be at the close of the humid summer.
1973 C. Cannings & L. Cavalli-Sforza in Adv. in Human Genetics ii. 135 Every bottleneck implies several generations in which the population numbers remain small.
1993 Science 24 Dec. 1955 Toba..may have been connected to a possibly unique Late Pleistocene bottleneck in human evolution.
2013 P. Russell et al. Biology (ed. 3) xxi. 465/2 An environmental catastrophe produced a bottleneck in the African cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus) population 10,000 years ago.
3. Music. A tubular object (originally made from the neck of a bottle, now usually a short glass or metal tube) worn by a guitarist on one finger, and used for sliding along the strings over the fingerboard when playing, varying pitch and producing a glissando effect particularly associated with blues; a guitar played using this device. Also as mass noun: a style of playing characterized by the use of a bottleneck. Cf. slide guitar n. at slide- comb. form 5.Recorded earliest in bottleneck blues n. at Compounds 3.
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society > leisure > the arts > music > performing music > playing instruments > playing stringed instrument > [noun] > guitar techniques
slidec1608
rasgado1876
fingerstyle1923
bottleneck1928
fingerpicking1956
bottleneck style1959
bottleneck playing1968
slide guitar1968
bottleneck slide guitar1973
chicken scratch1974
slack key1975
society > leisure > the arts > music > musical instrument > stringed instruments > guitar or lute type > [noun] > guitar > accessories
bottleneck1928
1928 Pittsburgh Courier 4 Feb. a2/5 (advt.) Weaver and Beasley (Guitar Duet)... Bottle Neck Blues.
1963 N.Y. Times 8 June l15/2 Mr. Lewis's ‘bottleneck fretting’ on his guitar sent out little whining metallic figures that spiraled in a maze of resonating overtones.
1965 Melody Maker 10 July 12/4 Bottlenecks are not manufactured yet, but most guitarists make them themselves.
1968 P. Oliver Screening Blues iii. 121 Muddy Waters's sliding, vibrating bottleneck on the strings gave a chilling, trembling excitement to the piece.
1976 Rolling Stone 22 Apr. 16/3 Slide guitars used to be referred to as bottlenecks.
1986 Making Music Apr. 28/3 His inability to master playing with a bottleneck.
2001 T. Winton Dirt Music (2003) 388 It's Elmore James and Sleepy John Estes. It's a jaw harp whanging down the tree into the sandstone just begging for bottleneck and banjo.
Compounds
C1. attributive.
a. Resembling the neck of a bottle. Cf. bottlenecked adj.
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the world > space > [adjective] > confined, restricted, or insufficiently spacious
narroweOE
straitc1290
unwidea1400
scanta1533
angust1540
roomless1548
pinched?1567
niggard1595
strict1598
straitened1602
pinching1607
incommodious1615
incapacious1635
over-strait1645
straiteninga1652
cramp1786
bottleneck1854
cramped1884
tight1937
claustrophobic1946
claustrophobe1954
1854 Weekly News & Chron. 1 July 412/3 Thrust through the bottle-neck aperture of the nest, by the inexorable bee.
1908 Daily Graphic 21 Mar. 13/3 Our desire at present is to look so feminine that bottle-neck shoulders are praised.
1937 L. MacNeice Coll. Poems (1979) IV. 69 The bottle-neck harbour collects the mud.
2002 J. Griffin Flowers that Heal vi. 91 A bamboo bottleneck vase holding the elegant camellia.
b. Having or relating to a bottleneck in a road, a process, etc. (see sense 2).
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1896 Daily News 26 Dec. 3/1 The widened portions at Holloway and elsewhere are rendered useless by narrow, bottle-neck approaches to Finsbury-park.
1918 Cassier's Engin. Monthly Apr. 271/1 The object in each case being the elimination of ‘bottleneck’ processes.
1953 Manch. Guardian 11 May 6/1 A small number of strikers were holding up the works from a bottleneck workshop.
2006 O. Brox et al. Polit. Econ. Rural Devel. iii. 38 Up to the 1980's, the very bottleneck factor limiting the industrial growth process has been considered to be availability of mobile labour.
c. Involving or using a bottleneck (sense 3) to play the guitar.
bottleneck playing n.
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society > leisure > the arts > music > performing music > playing instruments > playing stringed instrument > [noun] > guitar techniques
slidec1608
rasgado1876
fingerstyle1923
bottleneck1928
fingerpicking1956
bottleneck style1959
bottleneck playing1968
slide guitar1968
bottleneck slide guitar1973
chicken scratch1974
slack key1975
1968 Blues Unlimited Nov. 17 It kicked off with Bob Hite..ranged through Dave Kelly's bottleneck playing.
1989 Q Mar. 97/1 The latter's unorthodox style of bottleneck playing—derived from untutored attempts to mimic such legends as Robert Johnson, was ideally suited.
2011 South Bend (Indiana) Tribune (Nexis) 20 Aug. b8 Guitarist Doyle Bramhall II..provided the concert with some of its most invigorating moments with his..bottleneck playing.
bottleneck sound n.
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1967 Observer 29 Oct. 25/4 His is an almost archetypal Delta blues..offset by the whining ‘bottleneck’ sound (made by a metal tube on the little finger of his left hand).
1978 Gramophone Feb. 1490/1 Clapton produces some fittingly earthy bottleneck sounds.
2013 T. Pynchon Bleeding Edge xv. 163 A bright, twangly mandolin/bottleneck sound.
bottleneck style n.
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society > leisure > the arts > music > performing music > playing instruments > playing stringed instrument > [noun] > guitar techniques
slidec1608
rasgado1876
fingerstyle1923
bottleneck1928
fingerpicking1956
bottleneck style1959
bottleneck playing1968
slide guitar1968
bottleneck slide guitar1973
chicken scratch1974
slack key1975
1959 Jazz Rev. Nov. 20/1 When Morganfield really started to play the guitar, it was in the ‘bottle-neck’ style with the D Tuning.
1964 Oakland (Calif.) Tribune 28 June 19 el/4 Equally, if not more stimulating, is his guitar playing, for McDowell is a master of the bottle neck style.
1968 P. Oliver Screening Blues ii. 81 It is the blues guitarist who plays in ‘bottleneck’ style who often plays a similar accompaniment in both religious and blues recordings.
2013 Croydon Advertiser (Nexis) 15 Nov. 40 Alan gave me a few lessons on how to use open tunings and the bottleneck style, and introduced me to more old blues stuff.
C2. Parasynthetic.
bottleneck-shaped adj.
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1881 G. M. Fenn Off to Wilds xli. 285 They could hang by one hand, and thrust the other..up the bottle-neck shaped opening, to forage for eggs or young birds.
1898 Daily News 19 Oct. 3/1 [He] called Old Jewry ‘a bottle-neck-shaped street’.
2010 Daily Princetonian (Nexis) 22 Apr. 1 Regulars at the Lamb & Flag pub seek to stake out a bottleneck-shaped corner of the pub as their own.
C3.
bottleneck blues n. a style of blues characterized by the use of a guitar played with a bottleneck (sense 3).
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society > leisure > the arts > music > type of music > folk music > [noun] > blues
blues1912
rhythm and blues1924
folk-blues1926
bottleneck blues1928
policy blues1928
R&B1949
boogie1976
1928Bottle neck blues [see sense 3].
1964 Amer. Folk Music Occas. No. 1. 19 Fred McDowell, a fine bottle-neck blues player.
1983 A. Rosenbaum Folk Visions & Voices 183/1 He began to play an interesting assortment of bottleneck blues, finger-picking rags, and song accompaniments.
2006 Mojo Dec. 120/5 The sonic palette includes bottleneck blues and spoken-word jazz.
bottleneck guitar n. a style of guitar playing, used esp. in blues, characterized by the use of a bottleneck (sense 3); a guitar used for this; cf. slide guitar n. at slide- comb. form 5.Recorded earliest in attributive use.
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society > leisure > the arts > music > type of music > [noun] > other general types
country music1585
water musicc1660
concert music1776
eye music1812
ballet music1813
night music1832
absolute music1856
Tafelmusik1880
Ars Antiqua1886
Ars Nova1886
early music1886
tone poetry1890
mood music1922
Gebrauchsmusik1930
shake music1935
modernistic1938
industrial1942
spasm music1943
musica reservata1944
protest music1949
night music1950
palm court music1958
title music1960
bottleneck guitar1961
rinky-tink1962
Schrammel-musik1967
sweet music1967
chutney1968
roots music1969
electronica1980
multiphonics1983
chutney soca1987
chiptune1992
society > leisure > the arts > music > musical instrument > stringed instruments > guitar or lute type > [noun] > guitar > other guitars
slidec1608
samisen1616
angelique1660
angelot1678
angel lutea1708
strim-stramc1730
sitar1777
balalaika1788
ramkie1805
sancho1817
sanxian1839
bass guitar1855
gimbri1876
cuatro1904
electric guitar1933
requinto1937
tamburitza1941
tiple1942
dobro1952
acoustic guitar1953
acoustical guitar1957
bottleneck guitar1961
acoustic1962
slide guitar1968
1961 Little Sandy Rev. No. 12. 32 The..recordings reveal a shy, somewhat uncertain singer with a thin voice performing folk blues to his own bottle-neck guitar accompaniment.
1964 N.Y. Times 11 Oct. x. 23/2 One of the many devices that Negro country bluesmen use to create excitement and express and relieve their tensions is what is commonly called ‘bottleneck guitar’.
1973 R. Russell Bird Lives! xv. 192 Such a singer needed bottleneck guitars, a washboard, and a gin bottle.
1985 Music Week 2 Feb. 28/1 Hall's piano and Peabody's exuberant bottleneck guitar obviously dominate.
2006 A. Summers One Train Later v. 59 Alexis sings Chicago and country blues and plays some bottleneck guitar.
bottleneck slide n. (a) Geomorphology a type of landslide typical of some clay soils, in which the initial subsidence of a narrow section of ground leads to a wide-spreading flow of mud; (b) Music a bottleneck (sense 3), or the style of guitar playing characterized by its use; (also) a glissando produced using a bottleneck.
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1955 Proc. European Conf. Stability Earth Slopes, Sept. 20–5, 1954 III. 99 The famous slide at St. Thuribe near Quebec was also of this type and, in fact, was actually a ‘bottle-neck’ slide.
1965 Down Beat 18 Nov. 38/3 The blues patterns were stark, high pitched, alternately plucked and strummed, with his bottleneck slides adding a haunting quality.
1975 H. F. Winterkorn & H.-Y. Fang Found. Engin. Handbk. xi. 383/1 Bottleneck slides..occur primarily in leached glacial and postglacial marine clays (quick clays).
1984 Atlanta Constit. 23 Nov. 10 a/5 He is learning to play bottleneck slide and is ‘reconstructing and updating’ old blues guitar numbers.
2005 E. N. Bromhead in W. A. Lacerda et al. Landslides I. 6/1 This initial jumble of inputs is characteristic of bottleneck slides and mudslides.
2015 Jazziz Summer 79/1 The cords of his biceps..stretch taut as he expertly..works a bottleneck slide on any one of a half-dozen guitars he's brought along.
bottleneck slide guitar n. = bottleneck guitar n.Quot. 1969 probably shows an attributive use of sense 3 modifying the phrase slide guitar playing, rather than bottleneck slide guitar as a fixed collocation.
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society > leisure > the arts > music > performing music > playing instruments > playing stringed instrument > [noun] > guitar techniques
slidec1608
rasgado1876
fingerstyle1923
bottleneck1928
fingerpicking1956
bottleneck style1959
bottleneck playing1968
slide guitar1968
bottleneck slide guitar1973
chicken scratch1974
slack key1975
1969 Ethnomusicol. 13 582 His ‘bottleneck’ slide guitar playing is fully adapted to his singing.]
1973 Bluegrass Unlimited Dec. 13/2 (advt.) Bottleneck-slide guitar, fingerpicking, blues guitar, Flatpick country guitar, banjo.
1988 Washington Post 19 Aug. (Weekend section) 25/2 [She] is surrounded by full-fleshed country-blues arrangements that swing and stomp with acoustic and bottleneck slide guitars.
2004 M. Kemp Dixie Lullaby i. ii. 26 Walden..was blown away by the young guitarist's soulful style of bottleneck slide guitar.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, June 2016; most recently modified version published online December 2021).
bottleneckv.
/ˈbɒtlnɛk/, U.S. /ˈbɑdəlˌnɛk/ΚΠ
1911 Motor Age 17 Aug. 38/2 Bottle-necking the frame at the dash is introduced..to allow the cars to turn in a smaller diameter circle than was formerly possible.
1918 Engineer 5 July 6/3 The lower end [sc. of the tube or barrel of a field gun] was bottle-necked by..[machinery] used in the manufacture of gas cylinders.
2.
a. transitive. To confine or impede in a bottleneck; to channel through a bottleneck. Also: to block with a bottleneck. Cf. bottleneck n. 2. Frequently in passive.
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the world > movement > absence of movement > render immobile [verb (transitive)] > render motionless > by bottleneck
bottleneck1919
the world > movement > motion in a certain direction > movement over, across, through, or past > [verb (transitive)] > through > cause to pass through > pass through a bottleneck
bottleneck1919
the world > action or operation > difficulty > hindrance > types or manners of hindrance > hinder in specific manner [verb (transitive)] > hinder or delay > at a critical point
bottleneck1919
1919 Textile World Jrnl. 20 Sept. 111/2 This..is bottle-necking the industry, so far as a larger consumption of wool is concerned.
1928 Daily Express 12 June 3/4 He is ‘bottle-necked’ between Hungerford Bridge and the Hotel Cecil.
1933 Planning 1 viii. 8 It is easier to organise an export trade, which is necessarily bottlenecked through one channel.
1993 Computer Shopper July 341/1 When the sound board hardware handles the compression and decompression, you won't bottleneck the CPU.
2013 R. C. Owen Air Mobility x. 94 The flow of marine supplies was bottlenecked by the great mud flats and high tides of Inchon Harbor.
b. intransitive. To filter, or be channelled, into a bottleneck (cf. bottleneck n. 2); to be held up or delayed at a particular point. Also of a road, valley, etc.: to narrow.
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1927 N.Y. Times 17 July 12/1 The break in the oceanfront highway makes it necessary for traffic to ‘bottleneck’ in State highway route No. 4.
1935 Woman's Home Compan. Nov. 13/3 At length the valley bottle-necked into the gorge.
1982 Chilton's Iron Age 2 Aug. 56/1 Production bottlenecked at the early roughing and semi-finishing operations.
1999 Star-Ledger (Newark, New Jersey) 7 Nov. x. 1/2 The answer [to traffic congestion], they say, is..fixing the hot spots where traffic bottlenecks.
2004 T. Khair Bus Stopped 81 The road bottlenecked even further, so much so that it allowed only one vehicle through at a time.
2007 Dr. Dobb's Jrnl. Nov. 20/1 Writing to disk makes our data available, but slows our app down by bottlenecking on disk I/O.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, June 2016; most recently modified version published online December 2021).
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n.1712
v.1911- film grain
- film guide
- film hero
- film historian
- film history
- film holder
- film industry
- film journalism
- film library
- film loop
- film magazine
- film matinee
- film music
- film negative
- film noir
- film noirish
- film noirs
- film of death
- film over
- film pack
- film performance
- film première
- film producer
- film production
- film projector