Definition of "bottleneck" []

• A narrow or obstructed section, as of a highway or a pipeline. (noun)
• A point or an area of traffic congestion. (noun)
• A hindrance to progress or production. (noun)
• The narrow part of a bottle near the top. (noun)
• Music A style of guitar playing in which an object, such as a piece of glass or metal, is passed across the strings to achieve a gliding sound. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "Transferring large files over the network to another computer or NAS would be noticeably slower but accessing the Internet will still seem “fast” as the bottleneck is the Internet connection, not this 2nd AP link."
• "Renowned evolutionary biologist Edward O. Wilson has propounded what he terms the bottleneck theory: that maximum pressure on the natural world will occur this century as human population peaks, after which a declining human population will supposedly ease that pressure."
• ""This is a concentration point; it's what we call a bottleneck," says Bob Petitt, president of the migration observatory at nearby Holiday Beach Conservation Area."