Other forms: throttling, throttled, throttles
The throttle is the control that decides how much fuel and air reach the engine, and so how fast it runs. On a motorbike it is the grip you twist with your right hand; in a car it is the pedal under your right foot.
The verb is where the word started, and it is not gentle: to throttle someone is to strangle them, hands round the throat. From there it becomes choking off a supply. A network throttles your connection after the first ten gigabytes; a server throttles requests so that it does not fall over, and that is the sense programmers use daily. At full throttle means flat out, and people say it about a working week as readily as about an engine.
1nounthrottleThe control that regulates how much fuel reaches an engine, and so how fast it runs.
“He eased off the throttle as the bend came up.”
2verblimitTo limit the rate or amount of something deliberately.
“The site throttles downloads once you pass the daily limit.”
3verbstrangleTo strangle someone.
“He looked ready to throttle whoever had parked across the drive.”
throttle is an engine control.
A throttle is a little throat. Middle English throtel was throte, throat, with a small ending on it, and both senses follow from that: you close a throat, or you close the engine's. German still calls the thing a Drossel.
Middle English
*throtel
English, today
throttle
Built from
From Middle English throtel, diminutive of throte (“throat”), equivalent to throat + le. Compare German Drossel (“throttle”). More at throat.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA