boot
pronunciation
How to pronounce boot in British English:
UK [buːt]
How to pronounce boot in American English:
US [buːt]
-
- Noun:
- footwear that covers the whole foot and lower leg
- British term for the luggage compartment in a car
- the swift release of a store of affective force
- protective casing for something that resembles a leg
- an instrument of torture that is used to crush the foot and leg
- the act of delivering a blow with the foot
-
- Verb:
- kick; give a boot to
- cause to load (an operating system) and start the initial processes
Word Origin
- boot
- boot: [14] Boot is a comparatively late acquisition by English. It came, either directly or via Old Norse bóti, from Old French bote, whose source is unknown. The modern British sense ‘car’s luggage compartment’ goes back to a 17thcentury term for an outside compartment for attendants on a coach, which may have come directly from modern French botte. The boot of ‘to boot’ is a completely different word. It comes from Old English bōt ‘advantage, remedy’, which can be traced back to a prehistoric Germanic base *bat-, source also of better and best.=> best, better
- boot (n.1)
- footwear, early 14c., from Old French bote "boot" (12c.), with corresponding words in Provençal and Spanish, of unknown origin, perhaps from a Germanic source. Originally for riding boots only. An old Dorsetshire word for "half-boots" was skilty-boots [Halliwell, Wright].
- boot (n.2)
- "profit, use," Old English bot "help, relief, advantage; atonement," literally "a making better," from Proto-Germanic *boto (see better (adj.)). Compare German Buße "penance, atonement," Gothic botha "advantage." Now mostly in phrase to boot (Old English to bote).
- boot (v.2)
- "start up a computer," 1975, from bootstrap (v.), a 1958 derived verb from bootstrap (n.) in the computer sense.
- boot (v.1)
- "to kick," 1877, American English, from boot (n.1). Generalized sense of "eject, kick out" is from 1880. Related: Booted; booting.
Example
- 1. Characteristics : a low boot with a pink-gold buckle .
- 2. Easily installed on existing pc / mac 's and run from a dual boot menu
- 3. Her employers finally got fed up and gave her the boot .
- 4. This speeds up the boot process by taking advantage of a new kernel mode setting feature .
- 5. I detached the front wheel , and they helped me put the bike inside the car 's copious boot .