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Definitions

bootstrap

[boot-strap] / ˈbutˌstræp /


Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

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“I figured we can absolutely bootstrap this with no corporate background, just hard work and the American dream, we’ll work 80-plus hours a week, we’ll make it happen,” Lieu said.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 30, 2026

Cheung compares the bootstrap approach to solving a sudoku puzzle.

From Science Daily ● May 19, 2026

SilverSneakers represents just a small slice of that — the costs are not broken out by MedPAC — but it’s significant enough that the bootstrap venture has turned into a big business.

From MarketWatch ● Nov. 5, 2025

I think she is deeply wrong to let the tobacco company bootstrap these gas stations onto their suit.

From Slate ● Jun. 20, 2025

A person who pulls himself up from a low environment via the bootstrap route has two choices.

From "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" by Betty Smith

“You should apply if you want to build yourself up while also building a startup society that bootstraps other startup societies,” its website said.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 1, 2026

He had no experience in elected office, no notable history of activist organizing, no college degree, no significant success in the private sector, not even a record of pulling himself up by his proverbial bootstraps.

From Slate ● Jul. 8, 2026

But in the U.S., the ethos of grinding and pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps is ubiquitous, both in the country’s beginnings and our current environment of always-on technology and work hours.

From Seattle Times ● Apr. 15, 2024

“We gotta get our bootstraps together and get back on the drawing board, look at the film and try to make the best of these last two games.”

From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 10, 2024

American autobiographical literature is filled with numerous accounts of remarkable men who pulled themselves to the summit by their bootstraps.

From "The Autobiography of Malcolm X" by Alex Malcolm X;Hailey

But he’s bootstrapped himself into intelligence and with savvy networking and know-how, he becomes indispensable to the British, volunteering as a major to survey land and negotiate treaties with the Native tribes and French army.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 2, 2026

He bootstrapped that company and sold it for over $100 million in 2021.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 4, 2026

“We watched the pilot, and we were extremely impressed with how she’d bootstrapped this and essentially made it herself,” Ravi Nandan, the head of television at A24, said in an interview.

From New York Times ● Jan. 22, 2024

But many of these smaller livestream channels are more bootstrapped operations, adherent to the same grind culture their content facilitates.

From Slate ● Sep. 2, 2023

The men bootstrapped the enterprise they now call EarthViews by raising $40,000 from a “friends and family” funding round to pay for equipment and travel.

From Seattle Times ● Jul. 8, 2022

Their worries — AI systems deceiving their creators, bootstrapping their own code, or launching autonomous cyberattacks — show up in scientific literature.

From MarketWatch ● Sep. 22, 2026

Just like Donald Trump, also the son of a bootstrapping developer, the Kushner boys talk of visiting building sites as children with their father, Charlie.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 15, 2026

Putting aside the chutzpah of the bootstrapping, it’s not clear that the court is wrong.

From Slate ● Jun. 30, 2026

It brought the bootstrapping fantasy of this rising family, a few generations removed from the toiling class, into Britain’s living rooms with the right blend of serious theatricality and soapy splendor.

From Salon ● Mar. 28, 2026

He had worked as a printer but was now bootstrapping his own print shop on a shoestring, and became entirely self-employed.

From How and When to Be Your Own Doctor by Steve Solomon




Vocabulary lists containing bootstrap


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