瓶颈
píngjǐng · HSK 7
bottleneck
🍾 瓶 = bottle + 颈 = neck; bottle-neck = the narrow part that slows flow
瓶 (píng) is a bottle and 颈 (jǐng) is a neck. The literal bottle + neck stacks straight into the English bottleneck: the narrow throat where everything backs up and slows down.
瓶 — 併 (bing, phonetic) + 瓦 (tile/pottery)
瓶 is a phono-semantic compound. The right side 瓦 means tile or earthenware, signaling that the object is made of clay or pottery. The left side 并/併 supplies the sound 'ping'. Originally it referred to a pottery jar or jug, later generalized to any bottle or vase.