10 definitions found

From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:

boot

noun

1: footwear that covers the whole foot and lower leg

2: British term for the luggage compartment in a car

3: the swift release of a store of affective force; "they got a great bang out of it"; "what a boot!"; "he got a quick rush from injecting heroin"; "he does it for kicks" [syn: {bang}, {charge}, {rush}, {flush}, {thrill}, {kick}]

4: protective casing for something that resembles a leg

5: an instrument of torture that is used to crush the foot and leg [syn: {iron boot}, {iron heel}]

6: the act of delivering a blow with the foot; "he gave the ball a powerful kick"; "the team's kicking was excellent" [syn: {kick}, {kicking}]

verb

1: kick; give a boot to

2: cause to load (an operating system) and start the initial processes; "boot your computer" [syn: {reboot}, {bring up}]

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.44 [gcide]:

Boot \Boot\, verb (used with an object) [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.

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.44 [gcide]:

Boot \Boot\ (b[=oo]t), noun [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, adjective [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.

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.44 [gcide]:

Boot \Boot\, noun [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.

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.44 [gcide]:

Boot \Boot\, verb (used with an object) [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.]

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.44 [gcide]:

Boot \Boot\, verb (used without an object) To boot one's self; to put on one's boots.

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.44 [gcide]:

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

From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:

235 Moby Thesaurus words for "boot": Naval Reservist, Procrustean bed, Royal Marine, Seabee, abecedarian, additionally, alphabetarian, also, apprentice, articled clerk, as well, avail, bang, bed of Procrustes, beginner, besides, bloomer, blooper, blow, bluejacket, bobble, bonehead play, boner, bonnet, boo-boo, boob stunt, booting out, boots, bounce, break, breech, bump, bust, cadet, calcitration, can, cap, cashier, cashiering, catechumen, charge, chaussure, cloak, clodhoppers, coat, coif, colt, conge, conscript, debutant, defenestration, defrock, degrade, demote, deplume, deposal, depose, deprive, detrusion, disbar, discharge, disemploy, disemployment, dismiss, dismissal, displace, displacing, displume, draft, drafted man, draftee, drop a brick, drop kick, drop the ball, drum out, drumming out, duff, dumb trick, eject, ejection, ejectment, enlistee, enrollee, entrant, expel, expulsion, extrusion, fire, firing, fledgling, fluff, flush, fool mistake, footgear, footwear, foozle, forced separation, foul up, foul-up, freshman, frock, frogman, furlough, furloughing, give the ax, give the gate, gob, goof, gown, greenhorn, gunboats, hat, help, hood, horse marine, howler, ignoramus, in addition, inductee, initiate, into the bargain, iron heel, jacket, jettison, jollies, jolly, kick, kick upstairs, kicking, kicking downstairs, knee, lay off, layoff, let go, let out, levy, lift, louse up, louse-up, make redundant, mantle, marine, midshipman, midshipmite, moreover, muck up, muck-up, naval cadet, navy man, neophyte, novice, novitiate, obtrusion, ouster, ousting, pattens, pension off, pink slip, place kick, postulant, pratfall, probationer, probationist, profit, propel, pull a boner, punt, push, quiver, rack, raw recruit, read out of, recruit, rejection, release, removal, remove, replace, retire, retirement, rookie, rush, rush of emotion, sabots, sack, scarpines, screamer, screw, screw up, screw-up, selectee, sensation, separate forcibly, shirt, shiver, shoe, shoes, shove, shudder, sock, stocking, strip, superannuate, surge of emotion, surplus, surplusing, suspend, suspension, swabbie, tenderfoot, the ax, the boot, the bounce, the gate, the sack, thrill, throwing out, thumbscrew, ticket, tingle, tingling, titillation, to boot, too, trainee, tremor, tremor of excitement, turn off, turn out, tyro, unfrock, walking papers, wallop, wheel, wooden shoes

From Jargon File (4.3.1, 29 Jun 2001) [jargon]:

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.

From The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (27 SEP 03) [foldoc]:

boot (from "{bootstrap}" or "to pull oneself up by one's bootstraps") To load and initialise the {operating system} on a computer. See {reboot}, {cold boot}, {warm boot}, {soft boot}, {hard boot}, {bootstrap}, {bootstrap loader}. [{Jargon File}] (1995-11-27)
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