What is the word origin for the word reboot?

Answer 1

The person who edited the horse story is correct. The term comes from "boot," which is short for "bootstrap," an old term for starting from little or nothing. The term "bootstrap" is derived from the ancient phrase, "pulling [it, oneself, etc.] up by the bootstraps." In the early days of computer experimentation (the "breadboard" era when wiring was actually attached to wooden breadboards), builders and programmers referred to start-up--starting the machine language routines to run the device--as bootstrapping. This was before there were operating systems or programs. As English-speakers do, over the decades the term for starting or restarting a computer has been shortened to "boot," "boot up," and "reboot."

"The term reboot comes from the middle age (before computers). Horses who stopped in mid-stride required a boot to the rear to start again. Thus the term to rear-boot, later abbreviated into reboot." --- The above answer is complete nonsense. Boot is short for "Bootstrap". It's from the aphorism to "pull one's self up by one's bootstraps." A bootstrap load was the way early computer manufacturers described the process of a computer loading its operating system. Reboot is just the natural evolution of the term boot - meaning to boot again.