Health Dictionary
Reliable, easy-to-read patient information on common medical conditions — written in plain language, free of jargon, and grounded in current evidence. Browse the most frequent diagnoses, understand what they mean for everyday life, and learn which steps and questions help you have a focused conversation with your doctor.
Bootstrapping
Introduction
Overview
Overview
As an allusion to lifting oneself up by one’s own bootstraps, the term bootstrapping means using a special process to perform a task that one would be unable to do in general. In particular, it is used in the following contexts:
- Bootstrapping (computing), starting a computer or building complex tools after building simple tools that allow for the creation of the more complex tools. Shortened to booting to describe the process of starting up a computer.
- Bootstrapping (compilers), writing a compiler for a computer language using the language itself.
- Bootstrapping (linguistics), a theory of language acquisition.
- Bootstrapping (physics), axiomatic sets.
- Bootstrapping (statistics), a modern, computer-intensive, general purpose approach to statistical inference.
- Bootstrapping (law), a rule preventing hearsay in conspiracy cases.
- Bootstrapping (electronics), a form of positive feedback in analog circuit design.
- Bootstrapping (business), to start a business without external help (capital).
- Bootstrapping (finance), the method to create the spot rate curve.
- Bootstrapping (corporate finance), when a financial sponsor gains control of a majority of a target company’s equity through the use of borrowed money or debt.
- Bootstrapping (science fiction), giving advanced technology to a race less technologically advanced than one’s own.
- Operation Bootstrap (“Operación Manos a la Obra”) is the name given to the ambitious projects which industrialized Puerto Rico in the mid-20th century.
- William “Bootstrap Bill” Turner, a character in the Pirates of the Caribbean film series.
Editor-In-Chief: C. Michael Gibson, M.S., M.D. [1]