boot definition | Dictionary.com

boot

1 [boot]

–noun

1.	a covering of leather, rubber, or the like, for the foot and all or part of the leg.

2.	Chiefly British. any shoe or outer foot covering reaching to the ankle.

3.	an overshoe, esp. one of rubber or other waterproof material.

4.	an instrument of torture for the leg, consisting of a kind of vise extending from the knee to the ankle, tightened around the leg by means of screws.

5.	any sheathlike protective covering: a boot for a weak automobile tire.

6.	a protective covering for the foot and part of the leg of a horse.

7.	a protecting cover or apron for the driver's seat of an open vehicle.

8.	the receptacle or place into which the top of a convertible car fits when lowered.

9.	a cloth covering for this receptacle or place.

10.	British. the trunk of an automobile.

11.	a rubber covering for the connection between each spark-plug terminal and ignition cable in an automotive ignition system.

12.	Also called Denver boot. a metal device attached to the wheel of a parked car so that it cannot be driven away until a fine is paid or the owner reports to the police: used by police to catch scofflaws.

13.	U.S. Navy, Marines. a recruit.

14.	Music. the box that holds the reed in the reed pipe of an organ.

15.

a kick.

16.	Slang. a dismissal; discharge: They gave him the boot for coming in late.

17.	Informal. a sensation of pleasure or amusement: Watching that young skater win a gold medal gave me a real boot.

18.	Baseball. a fumble of a ball batted on the ground, usually to the infield.

–verb (used with object)

19.	to kick; drive by kicking: The boy booted a tin can down the street.

20.	Football. to kick.

21.	Baseball. to fumble (a ground ball).

22.	to put boots on; equip or provide with boots.

23.

Also, bootstrap. Computers.

a.	to start (a computer) by loading the operating system.

b.	to start (a program) by loading the first few instructions, which will then bring in the rest.

24.	Slang. to dismiss; discharge: They booted him out of school for not studying.

25.	to attach a Denver boot to: Police will boot any car with unpaid fines.

26.	to torture with the boot.

—Idioms

27.	bet your boots, to be sure or certain: You can bet your boots that I'll be there!

28.

die with one's boots on,

a.	to die while actively engaged in one's work, profession, etc.

b.	to die fighting, esp. in battle, or in some worthy cause.

Also, especially British, die in one's boots.

29.	get a boot, Informal. to derive keen enjoyment: I really got a boot out of his ridiculous stories.

Origin:
1275–1325; ME bote < AF, OF; of uncert. orig.

Shop for Boots at DSW
Save An Extra 30% On Clearance Shoes With Code SUMMER7 until 7/9!
DSW.com

Boot
We Offer 5,000+ Pairs of Boots. Slip into Boot!

BizRate.com/Boots

boot

2 [boot]

–noun

1.	Archaic. something given into the bargain.

Obsolete.

a.	advantage.

b.	remedy; relief; help.

–verb (used without object), verb (used with object)

3.	Archaic. to be of profit, advantage, or avail (to): It boots thee not to complain.

—Idiom

4.	to boot, in addition; besides: We received an extra week's pay to boot.

Origin:
bef. 1000; ME bote, OE bōt advantage; c. D boete, G Busse, ON bōt, Goth bota; see bet, better ¹

boot

3 [boot]

–noun Archaic.

booty; spoil; plunder.

Origin:
1585–95; special use of boot ² by assoc. with booty

Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.
Cite This Source

Link To boot

boot¹ (bōōt)

Protective footgear, as of leather or rubber, covering the foot and part or all of the leg.
A protective covering, especially a sheath to enclose the base of a floor-mounted gear shift lever in a car or truck.
Chiefly British An automobile trunk.
1. A kick.
2. Slang An unceremonious dismissal, as from a job. Used with the.
3. Slang A swift, pleasurable feeling; a thrill.
A Denver boot.
A marine or navy recruit in basic training.
Computer Science The process of starting or restarting a computer.
boots An instrument of torture, used to crush the foot and leg.

tr.v. boot·ed, boot·ing, boots

To put boots on.
To kick.
Slang To discharge unceremoniously. See Synonyms at dismiss.
Computer Science To start (a computer) by loading an operating system from a disk.
To disable (a vehicle) by attaching a Denver boot.
Baseball To misplay (a ground ball).

[Middle English bote, from Old French.]

boot² (bōōt)

intr.v. boot·ed, boot·ing, boots
To be of help or advantage; avail.
n.

Chiefly Southern & Midland U.S. See lagniappe.
Archaic Advantage; avail.

[Middle English boten, to be of help, from Old English bōtian, from bōt, help; see bhad- in Indo-European roots.]

la·gniappe (lān'yəp, lān-yāp')

n. Chiefly Southern Louisiana & Mississippi

A small gift presented by a storeowner to a customer with the customer's purchase.
An extra or unexpected gift or benefit. Also called regionally boot². See Regional Note at beignet.

[Louisiana French, from American Spanish la ñapa, the gift : la, the (from Latin illa, feminine of ille, that, the; see al-¹ in Indo-European roots) + ñapa (variant of yapa, gift, from Quechua, from yapay, to give more).]
Lagniappe derives from New World Spanish la ñapa, "the gift," and ultimately from Quechua yapay, "to give more." The word came into the rich Creole dialect mixture of New Orleans and there acquired a French spelling. It is still used in the Gulf states, especially southern Louisiana, to denote a little bonus that a friendly shopkeeper might add to a purchase. By extension, it may mean "an extra or unexpected gift or benefit."

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2009 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
Cite This Source

Boot

Boot\ (b[=oo]t), n. [OE. bot, bote, advantage, amends, cure, AS. b[=o]t; akin to Icel. b[=o]t, Sw. bot, Dan. bod, Goth. b[=o]ta, D. boete, G. busse; prop., a making good or better, from the root of E. better, adj. [root]255.]

1. Remedy; relief; amends; reparation; hence, one who brings relief.

He gaf the sike man his boote. --Chaucer.

Thou art boot for many a bruise And healest many a wound. --Sir W. Scott.

Next her Son, our soul's best boot. --Wordsworth.

2. That which is given to make an exchange equal, or to make up for the deficiency of value in one of the things exchanged.

I'll give you boot, I'll give you three for one. --Shak.

3. Profit; gain; advantage; use. [Obs.]

Then talk no more of flight, it is no boot. --Shak.

To boot, in addition; over and above; besides; as a compensation for the difference of value between things bartered.

Helen, to change, would give an eye to boot. --Shak.

A man's heaviness is refreshed long before he comes to drunkenness, for when he arrives thither he hath but changed his heaviness, and taken a crime to boot. --Jer. Taylor.

Boot

Boot\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Booted; p. pr. & vb. n. Booting.]

1. To profit; to advantage; to avail; -- generally followed by it; as, what boots it?

What booteth it to others that we wish them well, and do nothing for them? --Hooker.

What subdued To change like this a mind so far imbued With scorn of man, it little boots to know. --Byron.

What boots to us your victories? --Southey.

2. To enrich; to benefit; to give in addition. [Obs.]

And I will boot thee with what gift beside Thy modesty can beg. --Shak.

Boot

Boot\, n. [OE. bote, OF. bote, F. botte, LL. botta; of uncertain origin.]

1. A covering for the foot and lower part of the leg, ordinarily made of leather.

2. An instrument of torture for the leg, formerly used to extort confessions, particularly in Scotland.

So he was put to the torture, which in Scotland they call the boots; for they put a pair of iron boots close on the leg, and drive wedges between them and the leg. --Bp. Burnet.

3. A place at the side of a coach, where attendants rode; also, a low outside place before and behind the body of the coach. [Obs.]

4. A place for baggage at either end of an old-fashioned stagecoach.

5. An apron or cover (of leather or rubber cloth) for the driving seat of a vehicle, to protect from rain and mud.

6. (Plumbing) The metal casing and flange fitted about a pipe where it passes through a roof.

Boot catcher, the person at an inn whose business it was to pull off boots and clean them. [Obs.] --Swift.

Boot closer, one who, or that which, sews the uppers of boots.

Boot crimp, a frame or device used by bootmakers for drawing and shaping the body of a boot.

Boot hook, a hook with a handle, used for pulling on boots.

Boots and saddles (Cavalry Tactics), the trumpet call which is the first signal for mounted drill.

Sly boots. See Slyboots, in the Vocabulary.

Boot

Boot\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Booted; p. pr. & vb. n. Booting.]

1. To put boots on, esp. for riding.

Coated and booted for it. --B. Jonson.

2. To punish by kicking with a booted foot. [U. S.]

Boot

Boot\, v. i. To boot one's self; to put on one's boots.

Boot

Boot\, n. Booty; spoil. [Obs. or R.] --Shak.

Language Translation for : boot

Spanish: bota,

German: der Stiefel,

Japanese: 長ぐつ

More Translations »

boot

v.,n. [techspeak; from `by one's bootstraps'] To load and initialize the operating system on a machine. This usage is no longer jargon (having passed into techspeak) but has given rise to some derivatives that are still jargon.

The derivative `reboot' implies that the machine hasn't been down for long, or that the boot is a bounce (sense 4) intended to clear some state of wedgitude. This is sometimes used of human thought processes, as in the following exchange: "You've lost me." "OK, reboot. Here's the theory...."

This term is also found in the variants `cold boot' (from power-off condition) and `warm boot' (with the CPU and all devices already powered up, as after a hardware reset or software crash).

Another variant: `soft boot', reinitialization of only part of a system, under control of other software still running: "If you're running the mess-dos emulator, control-alt-insert will cause a soft-boot of the emulator, while leaving the rest of the system running."

Opposed to this there is `hard boot', which connotes hostility towards or frustration with the machine being booted: "I'll have to hard-boot this losing Sun." "I recommend booting it hard." One often hard-boots by performing a power cycle.

Historical note: this term derives from `bootstrap loader', a short program that was read in from cards or paper tape, or toggled in from the front panel switches. This program was always very short (great efforts were expended on making it short in order to minimize the labor and chance of error involved in toggling it in), but was just smart enough to read in a slightly more complex program (usually from a card or paper tape reader), to which it handed control; this program in turn was smart enough to read the application or operating system from a magnetic tape drive or disk drive. Thus, in successive steps, the computer `pulled itself up by its bootstraps' to a useful operating state. Nowadays the bootstrap is usually found in ROM or EPROM, and reads the first stage in from a fixed location on the disk, called the `boot block'. When this program gains control, it is powerful enough to load the actual OS and hand control over to it.

Jargon File 4.2.0
Cite This Source

boot (1)

"footwear," c.1325, from O.Fr. bote, with corresponding words in Prov. and Sp., of unknown origin, perhaps from a Gmc. source, originally for riding boots only. The verb meaning "kick" is Amer.Eng. 1877; that of "eject" is from 1880. Boot camp is attested from 1944 but supposedly is from the Spanish-American War, in reference to boots, leggings worn by U.S. sailors, with sense transferred to "recruit."

boot (2)

"profit, use" (in phrase to boot), O.E. bot, from P.Gmc. *boto (see better).

boot (3)

"start up a computer," 1975, from bootstrap (n.), 1953, "fixed sequence of instructions to load the operating system of a computer," on notion of the first-loaded program pulling up itself by the bootstraps.

Boot

Cash or other property added to an exchange or transaction in order to make the value of traded goods equal.

Investopedia Commentary

For example, when you trade in an older car (and cash) for a new model, the cash you pay in addition to your older car is the boot. In fact, you still hear people say things like "I'll throw in the warranty to boot," when referring to a sweetener for a deal.