'bootstrap' is a compound of 'boot' + 'strap' from English; originally referring to the strap or loop on a boot used to pull it on.

'bootstrap' originally referred to the physical 'strap' on a boot (19th century). The figurative phrase 'to pull oneself up by one's bootstraps' arose in the 19th century as a sarcastic image of an impossible action. In the mid-20th century, 'bootstrap' was adopted in computing to describe a self-starting initialization program (bootloader). Later, in statistics (1979), the 'bootstrap' resampling method was named by Bradley Efron.

Initially it meant 'the strap on a boot' (literal). It then became a figurative image for an impossible self-lift, and later evolved into meanings of 'self-starting' or 'self-initializing' (computing) and a named statistical technique (resampling).