n A loop (leather or other material) sewn at the side or top rear of a boot to help in pulling the boot on.
n A means of advancing oneself or accomplishing something without aid.
n (computing) The process by which the operating system of a computer is loaded into its memory
n (computing) The process necessary to compile the tools that will be used to compile the rest of the system or program.
n (statistics) Any method or instance of estimating properties of an estimator (such as its variance) by measuring those properties when sampling from an approximating distribution.