BOTTLENECK

Bottleneck

A bottleneck is a phenomenon where the performance or capacity of an entire system is limited by a single or limited number of components or resources. The term bottleneck is taken from the 'assets are water' metaphor. As water is poured out of a bottle, the rate of outflow is limited by the width of the conduit of exit—that is, bottleneck. By increasing the width of the bottleneck one can increase the rate at which the water flows out of the neck at different frequencies. Such limiting components of a system are sometimes referred to as bottleneck points.

The above text is a snippet from Wikipedia: Bottleneck
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bottleneck

Noun

  1. The narrow portion that forms the pouring spout of a bottle; the neck of a bottle.
  2. In traffic, any narrowing of the road, especially resulting in a delay.
  3. Any delay; part of a process that is too slow or cumbersome.
    It is easy to create entries; processing the paperwork is the bottleneck.
    The bottleneck in this computer program is the inefficient sorting process; we should replace it with a faster one.

Verb

  1. To slow by causing a bottleneck.
    The merge bottlenecked the traffic every morning.
  2. To form a bottleneck.
    The traffic bottlenecked at the merge every morning.


The above text is a snippet from Wiktionary: bottleneck
and as such is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

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