bootstrap
/ˈbuːtˌstɹæp/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: 2.87 in modern English
13
Scrabble Score
9
Letters
2
Syllables
7
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A loop (leather or other material) sewn at the side or top rear of a boot to help in pulling the boot on.
noun
A means of advancing oneself or accomplishing something without aid.
noun
The process by which the operating system of a computer is loaded into its memory.
noun
The process necessary to compile the tools that will be used to compile the rest of the system or program.
noun
Any method or instance of estimating properties of an estimator (such as its variance) by measuring those properties when sampling from an approximating distribution.
Example Sentences
- "He used his business experience as a bootstrap to win voters."
- "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- "I was born into that shitty town, maleness, in the remains of outdated ideals and misplaced machismo and repression and there are some good people stuck living there.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 or die out, I was never one of you.” I want to make it a better, healthier place—not spend all my time talking about how shitty it is and how anyone who would choose to live there deserves it."
- "Bootstrapping means building the GNU C Library, GNU Compiler Collection and several other key system programs."
- "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."
- "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."
Etymology
From boot + strap. The sense "pull up (without aid)" comes from the phrase pull oneself up by one's bootstraps.
Inflected Forms
Derived Forms
Phrases
bootstrap aggregating
bootstrap aggregation
bootstrap model
bootstrap paradox
bootstrap principle
bootstrap theory
pull oneself up by one's bootstraps
cold boot