Neck [geography]

[salgemma]

Additional meaning?

Term: Neck

Your definition or explanation: Small part of a large surface or space, little spot, little corner (some way related to somebody/something?)

Examples:
Space dust is everywhere in the cosmos, in our own neck of the universe and all the way back billions of light-years away in our infant universe.
He spent considerable time up here in this neck of the country looking for gold, which he never really found in any quantity.
The Bridgeway Technology Center II, located in the northern neck of the town.

Have you looked for this term or meaning in dictionaries, and not found it?
I found the expression "neck of the woods", I don't know whether the meaning is exactly the same, anyway that's a figurative and idiomatic expression, whereas in the example sentences it seems to me the term has a literal meaning.

 

[Welsh_Sion]

They seem new to me , too, although it seems as though they are playing on the idea of 'neck of the woods' and extending it to other (geographical) areas such as the universe, the country etc.

Interestingly, on googling, I found a UK reference to Hadrian's Wall referring to it as 'a huge stone necklace, across the northern neck of the country'. I guess that if you consider the island of Great Britain as some sort of human-like creature in profile, with Highland Scotland its head and Kent (south east of the island) and Cornwall (south west of the island) as its feel, then, at a stretch, you could see the area which Hadrian's wall 'collars' as being some form of neck. (Personally, I'd like to think that the narrower part of land where the Antonine Wall is located - the Firth of Forth to the Firth of Clyde in Scotland - as being a better example of a necklace encircling the 'GB neck').

 

[Welsh_Sion]

* feel = feet

 

[ain'ttranslationfun?]

They seem new to me , too, although it seems as though they are playing on the idea of 'neck of the woods' and extending it to other (geographical) areas such as the universe, the country etc.

Interestingly, on googling, I found a UK reference to Hadrian's Wall referring to it as 'a huge stone necklace, across the northern neck of the country'. I guess that if you consider the island of Great Britain as some sort of human-like creature in profile, with Highland Scotland its head and Kent (south east of the island) and Cornwall (south west of the island) as its feel, then, at a stretch, you could see the area which Hadrian's wall 'collars' as being some form of neck.

I agree, but as to "northern neck"... is that as opposed to "southern/eastern/western neck"?

 

[kentix]

It seems the same to me. It's just another figurative use.

I don't think a town can have a northern neck. It's figurative so unless the town has a very odd shape, it can't be that specific.

As Welsh Sion says, if it physically resembles a neck it's no longer purely figurative and then it might make sense to talk about a thin area connecting a thicker area.

But our neck of the woods and our neck of the universe are just talking about local areas that are familiar to the people living there. There is no requirement for them to be neck-shaped.