bootstrap
Part of speech: noun
verb
Morphological type: compound
Topics: computing
engineering
mathematics
natural-sciences
physical-sciences
sciences
statistics
Etymology: From boot + strap. The sense "pull up (without aid)" comes from the phrase pull oneself up by one's bootstraps.
Compound parts: boot
strap
Inflected forms:
form: bootstraps
pos: noun
tags: plural
form: bootstraps
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: bootstrapping
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: bootstrapped
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: bootstrapped
pos: verb
tags: past
Senses:
gloss: A loop (leather or other material) sewn at the side or top rear of a boot to help in pulling the boot on.
pos: noun
gloss: A means of advancing oneself or accomplishing something without aid.
pos: noun
tags: figuratively
examples: He used his business experience as a bootstrap to win voters.
gloss: The process by which the operating system of a computer is loaded into its memory.
pos: noun
gloss: The process necessary to compile the tools that will be used to compile the rest of the system or program.
pos: noun
gloss: Any method or instance of estimating properties of an estimator (such as its variance) by measuring those properties when sampling from an approximating distribution.
pos: noun
gloss: To help (oneself) without the aid of others.
pos: verb
examples: 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I was born into that shitty town, maleness, in the remains of outdated ideals and misplaced machismo and repression and there are some good people stuck living there.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.
gloss: To load the operating system into the memory of a computer. Usually shortened to boot.
pos: verb
gloss: To compile the tools that will be used to compile the rest of a system or program.
pos: verb
examples: Bootstrapping means building the GNU C Library, GNU Compiler Collection and several other key system programs.
gloss: To build or put together (something) by first building or putting together the tools, building blocks, ideas, etc., necessary to build (the thing).
pos: verb
tags: broadly
examples: 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.
gloss: To employ a bootstrap method.
pos: verb
gloss: To expand or advance an activity or a collection based solely on previous actions, work, findings, etc.
pos: verb
examples: 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.
Related words: booting
cold boot
reboot
Derived words: bootstrap aggregating
bootstrap aggregation
bootstrap model
bootstrappable
bootstrap paradox
bootstrapper
bootstrap principle
bootstrap theory
pull oneself up by one's bootstraps
Translations: