startup

Etymology 1

From the verb phrase start up.

noun

1. The act or process of starting a process or machine.
2. A new company or organization or business venture designed for rapid growth.
   Since the launch early last year of Udacity and Coursera, two Silicon Valley start-ups offering free education through MOOCs, massive open online courses, the ivory towers of academia have been shaken to their foundations. University brands built in some cases over centuries have been forced to contemplate the possibility that information technology will rapidly make their existing business model obsolete. 2013-07-20, “The attack of the MOOCs”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8845
3. (computing, often capitalized) A folder (especially in Windows), containing shortcuts of applications or programs that start up automatically after a user signs in.
   Coordinate term: autostart
   Add an app to run automatically at startup in Windows 10, Microsoft Support 3. With the file location open, press the Windows logo key + R, type shell:startup, then select OK. This opens the Startup folder. / 4. Copy and paste the shortcut to the app from the file location to the Startup folder.

Etymology 2

start + up, describing a boot that starts up (reaches up) to the middle of the leg.

noun

1. (obsolete, dialect, chiefly in the plural) A kind of high-low or thigh-high boot worn by rustic people.
   1579, Edmund Spenser, The Shepheardes Calender, London: Hugh Singleton, “Februarie,” Glosse, Galage) a startuppe or clownish shoe.
   But Hob and Iohn of the countrey they stept in churlishly, in their high startvps […] 1592, Robert Greene, A Quip for an Upstart Courtier, London: John Wolfe
   1619, Michael Drayton, “The Ninth Eglogue” in Pastorals. Contayning Eglogves, With the Man in the Moone, London: John Smethwicke, reproduced in J. William Hebel (ed.), The Works of Michael Drayton, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1932, p. 564, When not a Shepheard any thing that could, But greaz’d his start-ups blacke as Autumns Sloe,
2. (obsolete, dialect, chiefly in the plural) A kind of gaiter or legging.
3. (obsolete) One who comes suddenly into notice; an upstart.