boost

Formsboosts, boosting, boosted

Pluralboosts

1. 1
   verbtransitive

   To promote the growth or improvement of something, or to help it get past difficulties.

   Lower interest rates often boost consumer spending.

   The advertising campaign boosted sales across the whole region.

   Similarincrease, raise, stimulate, lift, bolster

   Oppositereduce, decrease, lower, dampen

   Note

   Here the push is figurative. It is carried over from the climber's lift to anything that can rise, such as chances, scores or sales, and it favors objects that can be measured. Ann Hulbert, writing in The New York Times in 2008, sets the claim that arts learning "boosts scores" against vaguer promises of creativity. That is the sense at its sharpest: a number going up.

2. 2
   nouncountable

   Something that provides help, or adds power or effectiveness; a form of assistance.

   The tax cut provided a much-needed boost to small businesses.

   Her kind words were a real boost to my spirits.

   Similarlift, stimulus, fillip, uplift, encouragement

   Oppositeblow, setback

3. 3
   nouncountable

   A push from behind or below, given to someone who is trying to climb.

   He needed a boost to reach the top of the wall.

   One boost from her teammates and she was over the ledge.

   Similarleg-up, lift, push, hoist

   Note

   The literal push the other senses grow from, and a word with no settled ancestry. The verb is first recorded in 1815 and the noun follows in 1825, so the noun is the younger form. Scots boost, "to move, drive off, shoo away," looks like a relative, and the word may even be a doublet of boast, with the same root splitting into two meanings.

4. 4
   verbtransitive

   To lift or push someone from behind who is trying to climb; to push them up.

   Two climbers boosted the youngest up to the narrow ledge.

   He bent down to boost his son onto the saddle.

   Similarlift, hoist, push, heave

   Note

   A verb that usually travels with a direction word: boost someone up, onto or over. Richard L. Cave's Peace Keepers (2009) has the typical scene. A man with a broken arm cannot climb a wall, so a friend grabs his foot and boosts him up. The object is always the climber, never the wall. Compare the noun for the push itself.

5. 5
   verbtransitive

   To give someone a booster shot: an additional dose of a vaccine after the first ones.

   Pharmacists can boost eligible patients during the same visit.

   The travel clinic boosted her before the trip abroad.

   Note

   A clinician's verb in which the person is the object: a pharmacist boosts a patient, not a vaccine. The booster itself is an extra dose given after the first series of shots. Its purpose is to restore or strengthen protection as the immunity from those first doses fades.

6. 6
   verbCanadatransitive

   To jump-start a vehicle by running cables from the battery of a working vehicle to the dead one.

   A passing driver stopped to boost our stalled van.

   They boosted the SUV with jumper cables in the parking lot.

   Similarjump, jump-start

   Note

   A Canadian way of saying jump-start. The object can be the dead battery or the car. Popular Mechanics in 1980 speaks of boosting a dead battery, while Doug Mitchell, posting to alt.autos.gm in 2004, wants to boost "my old Summit" and asks "how to connect for boost", using the noun as well. Thomas Hurka's The Best Things in Life (2010) turns it into a moral analogy.

7. 7
   verbtransitive

   To amplify a signal, increasing its strength or power.

   Engineers boost the signal before it travels down the long cable.

   An amplifier boosted the weak broadcast across the region.

   Similaramplify, strengthen, increase

   Oppositeattenuate, weaken

   Note

   In engineering the point is usually practical: a signal is raised above background noise, or built back up after losing strength in transmission. Signals and broadcasts are what get boosted, and an amplifier does the work. It sits close to the general sense of helping, but here the increase is physical and measurable.

8. 8
   verbslangtransitive

   To steal something, especially as casual shoplifting or petty theft.

   The kids boosted a few magazines on a dare.

   She knew better than to boost anything from that store.

   Similarsteal, pinch, nick, swipe, lift

   Note

   Slang for theft that clusters around shoplifting: in The Nature of Crime (1978), Harold J. Vetter and Ira J. Silverman write of "boosted" merchandise concealed on the person. The -ing form can stand alone as the name of the offense, as in Noire's Thug-A-Licious (2006): a weekend in jail for boosting. Watch the object: boosted sales grew, boosted goods were stolen, and the "increase" meaning is the everyday reading.

9. 9
   noununcountable

   The positive intake manifold pressure produced in cars fitted with a turbocharger or supercharger.

   Drivers watch the gauge to see how much boost the turbo is making.

   Too much boost can damage an engine that isn't built for it.

   Note

   Engine people treat it as a quantity rather than an event, so it is uncountable: a turbo makes boost, and drivers ask how much boost it is making. It is pressure in the intake manifold above atmospheric, created when a turbocharger or supercharger forces in extra air for more power. Unlike the general sense of help, it does not take "a" here.

10. 10
    nouncountable

    A coordinate transformation that changes the velocity between two frames of reference.

    Applying a boost along the x-axis relates the two observers' measurements of velocity.

    A boost along one axis leaves the perpendicular directions unchanged.

    Note

    A term from relativity: a Lorentz transformation between two inertial frames in uniform motion relative to each other. It changes velocity by mixing the time and space coordinates, but it does not turn the spatial axes, and that is what sets it apart from a rotation. Physicists speak of a boost along a particular axis, and directions perpendicular to that axis are left untouched.

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