Bootstrap refers to getting something started or improving your situation using only your own effort and resources, without outside help.

When someone bootstraps a business, they start it with their own savings instead of borrowing money or finding investors. A student might bootstrap their way through college by working part-time jobs and saving carefully. The word captures that scrappy, self-reliant spirit of making things work with whatever you have available.

In computer science, bootstrapping describes how a computer starts up: it uses a tiny built-in program to load progressively bigger programs until the whole operating system is running. This process is called booting up your computer. The idea is the same: the computer pulls itself up from almost nothing, using only what it already contains, until it's fully functional and ready to work.