Word.ws English Dictionary

pulls oneself up by one's bootstraps

pulls oneself up by one's bootstraps is the third-person singular simple present indicative 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 pulls oneself up by one's bootstraps

What is pulls oneself up by one's bootstraps the third-person singular simple present indicative of?
Pulls oneself up by one's bootstraps is the third-person singular simple present indicative of pull oneself up by one's bootstraps.

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

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

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: pulls 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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