boot

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• intransitive verb To be of help or advantage; avail.
• noun Archaic Advantage; avail.
• idiom (to boot) In addition; besides.
• noun A durable covering for the foot and part or much of the leg, usually made of leather, fabric, plastic, or rubber.
• noun A protective covering, especially a sheath to enclose the base of a floor-mounted gear shift lever in a car or truck.
• noun Chiefly British An automobile trunk.
• noun A kick.
• noun Slang An unceremonious dismissal, as from a job. Used with the.
• noun Slang A swift, pleasurable feeling; a thrill.
• noun A Denver boot.
• noun A marine or navy recruit in basic training.
• noun Computers The process of starting or restarting a computer.
• noun An instrument of torture, used to crush the foot and leg.
• transitive verb To put boots on.
• transitive verb To kick.
• transitive verb Slang To discharge unceremoniously. synonym: dismiss.
• transitive verb Computers To start (a computer) by loading an operating system from a disk.
• transitive verb To disable (a vehicle) by attaching a Denver boot.
• transitive verb Baseball To misplay (a ground ball).

from The Century Dictionary.

• To profit; advantage; avail: now only used impersonally: as, it boots us little.
• To present into the bargain; enrich; benefit.
• noun Profit; gain; advantage.
• noun Something which is thrown in by one of the parties to a bargain as an additional consideration, or to make the exchange equal.
• noun Help or deliverance; assistance; relief; remedy: as, boot for every bale.
• noun Resource; alternative.
• noun Obsolete preterit of bite.
• noun Booty; spoil; plunder.
• noun In agriculture, the uppermost leaf-sheath, just below the brush or head, of a broom-corn plant; also the lowest leaf-bearing internode on a stalk of wheat.
• To put boots on.
• To torture with the boot.
• To kick; drive by kicking: as, boot him out of the room.
• To beat, formerly with a long jack-boot, now with a leather surcingle or waist-belt: an irregular conventional punishment inflicted by soldiers on a comrade guilty of dishonesty or shirking duty.
• noun A covering (usually of leather) for the foot and lower part of the leg, reaching as far up as the middle of the calf, and sometimes to the knee.
• noun Hence In modern usage, also, any shoe or outer foot-covering which reaches above the ankle, whether for men or women: more properly called half-boot or ankle-boot.
• noun An instrument of torture made of iron, or a combination of iron and wood, fastened on the leg, between which and the boot wedges were introduced and driven in by repeated blows of a mallet, with such violence as to crush both muscles and bones.
• noun A protective covering for a horse's foot.
• noun In the seventeenth century, a drinking-vessel: from the use of leathern jacks to drink from.
• noun In ornithology, a continuous or entire tarsal envelop, formed by fusion of the tarsal scutella. It occurs chiefly in birds of the thrush and warbler groups. See cut under booted.
• noun The fixed step on each side of a coach.
• noun An uncovered space on or by the steps on each side of a coach, allotted to the servants and attendants; later, a low outside compartment, either between the coachman's box and the body of the coach or at the rear.
• noun A receptacle for baggage in a coach, either under the seat of the coachman or under that of the guard, or, as in American stage-coaches, behind the body of the coach, covered by a flap of leather.
• noun A leather apron attached to the dashboard of an open carriage and designed to be used as a protection from rain or mud.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

• transitive verb To profit; to advantage; to avail; -- generally followed by it; as, what boots it?
• transitive verb obsolete To enrich; to benefit; to give in addition.
• noun Remedy; relief; amends; reparation; hence, one who brings relief.
• noun That which is given to make an exchange equal, or to make up for the deficiency of value in one of the things exchanged.
• noun obsolete Profit; gain; advantage; use.
• noun in addition; over and above; besides; as a compensation for the difference of value between things bartered.