DictionaryAI

booting

SayBOOT-ing/ˈbutɪŋ/UK/ˈbuːtɪŋ/AUS/ˈbʉːtɪŋ/

Pluralbootings (some meanings)

5 meanings of booting

Practice

  1. 1
    noununcountable
    The process by which a computer starts up and loads the software it needs to operate.

    The booting completed without errors after the system update.

    Technicians monitored the booting closely during the diagnostic test.

    Similarstartup

    Oppositeshutdown

    Note

    A computing noun that treats each start-up as an event, so it can be counted. Peter Norton's Inside the PC (1999) promises time saved "on subsequent bootings" by changing a setting in the motherboard BIOS. As a noun it takes an article or a plural. With a direct object (booting the server) it is the verb form instead, even though the activity is the same.

  2. 2
    verb
    Present participle of boot.

    The technician is booting the server after the upgrade.

    We were booting the systems one by one to find the fault.

    Note

    The -ing form of the verb does two jobs: it follows be in progressive tenses (is booting) and stands in noun positions as a gerund. It carries every sense of boot: kicking, pulling on boots, ejecting someone from a chat, flooring the accelerator in colloquial US and Canadian use, even vomiting in slang. A gerund takes a direct object (booting the server). The nouns that share its spelling take articles and plurals (a booting, bootings).

  3. 3
    nouncountable or uncountable
    The act of kicking something, especially a hard kick delivered with the foot.

    The old gate took a fierce booting before it finally swung open.

    The players gave the loose ball a hearty booting toward the goal.

    Similarkicking, kick

  4. 4
    noundialectalMulticultural London Englishcountable
    The killing of a person by gunfire.

    Word spread quickly about the booting near the old warehouse.

    There's been three bootings in the ends since summer, and nobody's talking.

    Similarshooting

    Note

    Criminal slang from Multicultural London English, heard in lyrics such as Digga D's "P4DP" (2019), where gun attacks sit beside trips out of the city to carry out bootings. It counts like any noun: a booting, three bootings. Outside that register a listener may hear a kicking instead, so quote it rather than adopt it. The plain words are shooting or murder.

Less common meaning

  1. 5
    nounobsoleteuncountable
    Advantage or profit, especially goods seized by plunder; loot.

    The victors loaded their ships with the booting seized from the coastal villages.

    Thou, Linus, that louest still to be promoting, Because I sport, about King Henries marriage: Think' st this will proue a matter worth the carriage. But let it alone, Lynus, it is no booting.
    1618, John Harrington, The most elegant and witty epigrams of Sir Iohn Harrington
    Note

    An obsolete word for profit, especially profit taken by force. Sir John Harrington's epigrams of 1618 use it in the phrase "it is no booting," meaning there is nothing to be gained, so let the matter alone. Today it works only as period color. For plunder, booty is the natural modern word, and this sense is easily mistaken for the kicking meaning.

booting is a form of boot

boot, verb: To start up a computer or other system by triggering its built-in startup sequence. Full entry

Forms
bootboots he/she/itbooting -ing formbooted past tense, past participle
Spelling
boot → booting: add -ing

Practice

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