Definition of "bottle"

He had one hand on the bounce bottle—and he’d never let go of that since he got back to the table—but he had a handkerchief in the other and was swabbing his deadlights with it.

1913, Joseph C. Lincoln, chapter 6, in Mr. Pratt's Patients

With Marvin getting older ... and walking now ... I thought it was time to start weaning him off of his bottle.

2004 May 3, Tom Armstrong, Marvin (comic)

I was no sooner in the middle of the pond, but my horse vanisht away, and I sat vpon a bottle of hey, neuer so neare drowning in my life: […]

1589–1592 (date written), Ch[ristopher] Marl[owe], The Tragicall History of D. Faustus. […], London: […] V[alentine] S[immes] for Thomas Bushell, published 1604; republished as Hermann Breymann, editor, Doctor Faustus (Englische Sprach- und Literaturdenkmale des 16., 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts; 5; Marlowes Werke: Historisch-kritische Ausgabe […]; II), Heilbronn, Baden-Württemberg: Verlag von Gebr[üder] Henninger, 1889, scene XI, pages 144 and 146

Don Pedro. Well, if ever thou dost fall from this faith, thou wilt prove a notable argument. / Benedick. If I do, hang me in a bottle like a cat and shoot at me; and he that hits me, let him be clapped on the shoulder and called Adam.

1598–1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, “Much Adoe about Nothing”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act I, scene i]

Can you deny that you've been off and on lately between flunkydom and The Cause, like a donkey between two bottles of hay?

1850, [Charles Kingsley], Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet. […], volumes (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Chapman and Hall, […]

See, my old man’s got a problem / He live with the bottle, that’s the way it is

1988 April 5, Tracy Chapman (lyrics and music), “Fast Car”, in Tracy Chapman

The temptation is to regard him [John Ogdon] as an idiot savant, a big talent bottled inside a recalcitrant body and accompanied by a personality that seems not just unremarkable, but almost entirely blank.

2014 May 11, Ivan Hewett, “Piano Man: a Life of John Ogdon by Charles Beauclerk, review: A new biography of the great British pianist whose own genius destroyed him ”, in The Daily Telegraph (Review)‎

Closely related to creep is the process of bottling. As you may have noticed from your folded sheet of paper, pages don't merely creep when they're folded — they also rotate slightly. This rotation or bottling is caused by the thickness or bulk of the paper.

2002, Against the Clock, QuarkXPress 5: Advanced Electronic Documents, page 58