noun

• (figuratively) A means of advancing oneself or accomplishing something without aid.
  "He used his business experience as a bootstrap to win voters."
• (computing) The process by which the operating system of a computer is loaded into its memory.
• (computing) The process necessary to compile the tools that will be used to compile the rest of the system or program.
• (statistics) Any method or instance of estimating properties of an estimator (such as its variance) by measuring those properties when sampling from an approximating distribution.

verb

• (computing) To load the operating system into the memory of a computer. Usually shortened to boot.
• (computing) To compile the tools that will be used to compile the rest of a system or program.
  "Bootstrapping means building the GNU C Library, GNU Compiler Collection and several other key system programs."
• (by extension) To build or put together (something) by first building or putting together the tools, building blocks, ideas, etc., necessary to build (the thing).
  "And she finds the plan. She doesn't remember it; she bootstraps it from first principles, in a handful of minutes, just like she's done a hundred times before."
• (statistics) To employ a bootstrap method.