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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

“We built the Data Factory to bootstrap the initial intelligence for the Sonny robot, so that we can begin to deploy Sonny into the field,” said Josh Gruenstein, co-founder of Tutor.

From Los Angeles Times May 31, 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

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

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

Those who pull themselves up by the bootstraps should be able to attain a life materially more comfortable than their parents’.

From The Wall Street Journal Nov. 20, 2025

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

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

“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

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

From Slate Jun. 30, 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 Solomon, Steve




Vocabulary lists containing bootstrap


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