To begin an enterprise or recover from a setback without any outside help; to succeed only on one's own effort or abilities.

Etymology:

  • Early 19th century US; attested 1834. In original use, often used to refer to pulling oneself over a fence, and implying that someone is attempting or has claimed some ludicrously far-fetched or impossible task. Presumably a variant on a traditional tall tale, as elaborated below. The shift in sense to a possible task appears to have developed in the early 20th century, and the use of the phrase to mean “a ludicrous task” continued into the 1920s.
  • Widely attributed to The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen, by Rudolf Erich Raspe, where the eponymous Baron pulls himself out of a swamp by his hair, though not by his bootstraps; misattribution dates to US, 1901. The Adventures is primarily a collection of traditional tall tales; using bootstraps presumably arose as a variant on the same tall tale, or independently.
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We can't get a loan, so we'll just have to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps.

Submitted on September 01, 2009

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vytáhněte se pomocí zaváděcích systémů

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    "pull oneself up by one's bootstraps." Phrases.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 29 Mar. 2024. <https://www.phrases.com/phrase/pull-oneself-up-by-ones-bootstraps_6253>.

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