A narrow section of road or a junction that impedes traffic flow. The construction work created a bottleneck on the highway, causing long delays.
A point of congestion or blockage, in particular in a process or system. The outdated software was a bottleneck in the company's workflow, slowing down productivity.
The narrow part of a bottle near its mouth. Wine dripped slowly from the bottleneck onto the tablecloth.
A sharp reduction in the size of a population, leading to a loss of genetic diversity. Scientists believe the cheetah population went through a genetic bottleneck thousands of years ago.