bootstrap

/ˈbuːtˌstɹæp/

bootstrap noun: a loop (leather or other material) sewn at the side or top rear of a boot to help in pulling the boot on.

Image: Tarquin, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

bootstrap (plural bootstraps)

A loop (leather or other material) sewn at the side or top rear of a boot to help in pulling the boot on.
(figuratively) A means of advancing oneself or accomplishing something without aid.
- He used his business experience as a bootstrap to win voters.
The process by which the operating system of a computer is loaded into its memory.
The process necessary to compile the tools that will be used to compile the rest of the system or program.
Any method or instance of estimating properties of an estimator (such as its variance) by measuring those properties when sampling from an approximating distribution.

Verb

bootstrap (third-person singular simple present bootstraps, present participle bootstrapping, simple past and past participle bootstrapped)

To help (oneself) without the aid of others.
- Sam spent years bootstrapping himself through college.
- I was born into that shitty town, maleness, in the remains of outdated ideals and misplaced machismo and repression and there are some good people stuck living there. They are not in charge. They did not build it. And I don’t feel okay just moving out and saying “fuck y’all — bootstrap your way out...2016 March 11, Jennifer Coates, “I Am A Transwoman. I Am In The Closet. I Am Not Coming Out.”, in Medium
To load the operating system into the memory of a computer. Usually shortened to boot.
To compile the tools that will be used to compile the rest of a system or program.
- Bootstrapping means building the GNU C Library, GNU Compiler Collection and several other key system programs.Gentoo X86 Handbook
(broadly) To build or put together (something) by first building or putting together the tools, building blocks, ideas, etc., necessary to build (the thing).
- And she finds the plan. She doesn't remember it; she bootstraps it from first principles, in a handful of minutes, just like she's done a hundred times before.2016 January 1, qntm, “Your Last First Day”, in SCP Foundation, archived from the original on 04 Sep 2024
To employ a bootstrap method.
To expand or advance an activity or a collection based solely on previous actions, work, findings, etc.
- Gradually, more and more terms were discovered, especially as there was a tendency in the literature to list a number of related terms together, thus allowing me to bootstrap new terms found accompanying those originally searched for.2018, James Lambert, “A multitude of ‘lishes’: The nomenclature of hybridity”, in English World-Wide, page 5

bootstrap meaning in Indonesian

bootstrap in Indonesian

the process by which the operating system of a computer is loaded into its memory — see also boot: but, inisialisasi

Examples of bootstrap in a sentence

We can't get a loan, so we'll just have to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps.
He talks like he's some scrappy bootstrap entrepreneur but he's just some old money rich kid roleplaying.
It enabled me to bootstrap my start-up.

All 11 example sentences with bootstrap

Forms of bootstrap

Noun
plural	bootstraps
Verb
third-person singular present	bootstraps
present participle	bootstrapping
past participle	bootstrapped
past	bootstrapped

Plural of bootstrap: bootstraps

Origin of bootstrap

From boot + strap. The sense "pull up (without aid)" comes from the phrase pull oneself up by one's bootstraps.

Words formed from bootstrap

Phrases with bootstrap

Questions about bootstrap

What does bootstrap mean?: Bootstrap means a loop (leather or other material) sewn at the side or top rear of a boot to help in pulling the boot on.
What is bootstrap in Indonesian?: Bootstrap in Indonesian is but, inisialisasi. See Bootstrap meaning in Indonesian.
What part of speech is bootstrap?: Bootstrap can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce bootstrap?: Bootstrap is pronounced /ˈbuːtˌstɹæp/.
What is the plural of bootstrap?: The plural of bootstrap is bootstraps.

Words near bootstrap in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: bootstrap (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-bootstrap.wav.

Cite this entry: “bootstrap.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/bootstrap. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.