bootstrap
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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One promising strategy is known as the "bootstrap" approach.
From Science Daily ● May 19, 2026
In science-fiction scenarios of first contact with extraterrestrials, humans usually bootstrap a common language with mathematics, demonstrating that we know the digits of pi and so forth.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 9, 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
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“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
Pulling up your bootstraps and spraying some tough on it is important.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 3, 2025
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
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
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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
Migrating to another cloud provider or implementing a multi-cloud strategy would likely be too costly for a bootstrapped startup like his.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 22, 2025
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
“They’ve always bootstrapped stuff,” yielding cars that were advanced and innovative and that punched above their weight, Mr. Robbins said.
From New York Times ● Apr. 21, 2022
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
Culturally, this typically gets framed as alpha-male, gym-rat bluster about bootstrapping.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 20, 2026
In your discussion of cheating social death, you reference "bootstrapping," which you describe as “using the established part of an existing system to create a new one that serves a fundamentally different form or function.”
From Salon ● Nov. 10, 2024
It’s a quintessential American story, of bootstrapping from the humblest of origins to the literal highest of heights.
From Seattle Times ● Sep. 14, 2023
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