Word.ws English Dictionary

pulled oneself up by one's bootstraps

pulled oneself up by one's bootstraps is the simple past and past participle of pull oneself up by one's bootstraps.

Meaning of pull oneself up by one's bootstraps

Verb

pull oneself up by one's bootstraps (third-person singular simple present pulls oneself up by one's bootstraps, present participle pulling oneself up by one's bootstraps, simple past and past participle pulled oneself up by one's bootstraps)

  1. (idiomatic) To begin an enterprise or recover from a setback without any outside help; to succeed only by one's own efforts or abilities.
    • We can't get a loan, so we'll just have to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps.

Questions about pulled oneself up by one's bootstraps

What is pulled oneself up by one's bootstraps the simple past and past participle of?
Pulled oneself up by one's bootstraps is the simple past and past participle of pull oneself up by one's bootstraps.

Words near pulled oneself up by one's bootstraps in the dictionary

  1. pulled one's punches
  2. pulled one's socks up
  3. pulled one's weight
  4. pulled oneself
  5. pulled oneself together
  6. pulled oneself up by one's bootstraps
  7. pulled oneself up by one's own bootstraps
  8. pulled out
  9. pulled out all stops
  10. pulled out all the stops
  11. pulled out of a hat

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: pulled oneself up by one's bootstraps (page history and authors); pull oneself up by one's bootstraps (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.

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