To confine or trap as if in a bottle; to trap or hem in a military force so it cannot move freely.
From em- (in) + bottle. This military term uses the image of a bottle's narrow neck to describe how forces become trapped or confined by surrounding enemy positions.
Military strategists used 'bottleneck' and 'embottle' as metaphors—they literally wanted to trap enemy armies the way liquid gets stuck in a bottle's neck, and geography often cooperated with this strategy.
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